Victory Roll
by GiuliettaC
Summary: May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.
1. Chapter 1

**Victory Roll**

**Summary:**

May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I like the idea of Foyle having friendly relations with our American cousins. He hit it off pretty well with Captain (less so with _Major_) Kieffer, but we never see him interact with any American women. In the service of **variety **in the Foyle fiction arena, (a hazel-eyed friend of mine writes 57 different ones for various fandoms), I think the ladies of America deserve a crack at Foyle, and this fic attempts to remedy that sad omission in the TV series.

…

The book _'1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates', _is a tongue-in-cheek retelling of the history of England. Written by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman, it was published in 1930, and has been a firm favourite with kids of all ages ever since.

…

This story is for _dancesabove. _

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**Saturday, 16****th**** May 1942**

It was a little after two o'clock when Foyle stepped into the foyer of The Royal Victoria Hotel, St Leonards, with Milner close behind. After a quiet word with the concierge, the two men turned towards the stairs and ascended the wide, imposing staircase under the frank gaze of its full-length marble-pillared mirror. Reaching the top, they turned eastwards and strode through the Piano Bar, en route for the Sea Terrace Restaurant.

That day, over luncheon, the restaurant had been the scene of a nasty incident involving a wife, a lover, a jealous husband, a fish-knife, and a bloody nose. The fish-knife had found its way into the husband's grasp and finished up embedded in the lover's thigh. The wife's disgruntlement with these offbeat cutlery arrangements had found handy expression in the form of a crystal salt-cellar, driven point-first up her husband's nose.

Given that there had been no loss of life, Foyle wouldn't normally have involved himself with such a relatively minor fracas, but alas, Hugh Reid was laid up with an ingrown toenail—_Christ!_ he'd moaned, when Foyle had visited him in hospital earlier that day,_ I wouldn't wish this pain on Hitler! _So Hugh was well and truly indisposed, and it somehow didn't seem quite fair to let Milner field this one entirely on his own.

The key players in the lunchtime drama had already been taken aside for questioning-stroke-medical attention, leaving behind a roomful of bemused diners, who, for the most part, seemed to have enjoyed the unscheduled matinee performance. A profusely apologetic management was keeping them well-oiled, and the detained patrons had settled back to enjoy their complimentary drinks until they were approached for questioning.

The May afternoon sunlight streaming through the tall arched windows had a luminescent quality that made the fine cut crystal sparkle, and the crisp white linen glow. The same light illuminated a window table where a lady sat alone.

She was—Foyle assessed her—_early forties?_ _Hard to say…_ but well-preserved without the help of artifice. Gentle brown eyes, and mid-brown hair, cascading in waves to her shoulders, fashionably curled and pinned back in a Victory Roll from a pleasant, open face. She'd dressed it with a single flower above her delicate right ear. Petite, trim figure. Navy floral dress. Demure white gloves. Cream high-heeled court shoes sporting looped-leather pom-poms on the toes. Foyle blinked. Those shoes. Unusually, the well-turned pair of ankles clad in fully-fashioned stockings caught his eye.

"May I take your name, Madam?" Milner licked his pen, and poised it to record the information.

"Jocelyn St _Just_." The accent was unmistakeably transatlantic, with the cadence, if not _quite_ the melody, of 'well, ahhh declare'. Confederate—for all Foyle supposed it mattered in this modern day and age—perhaps a little north of Scarlett in a crinoline, but never, in a million years, Yankee. Lunching alone, Foyle noted. Where was her Gable?

_St Just_, then. She pronounced it _'Sain Zhewst'_, but Foyle knew the spelling well enough, and made a mental note to check that Milner got it right. It was a name of Norman origin he'd seen in documents pertaining to the history of Hastings—and, coincidentally, it matched precisely the cast-iron name-plate attached into the front wall of his house in Steep Lane.

_Had _been attached, he mentally corrected, until the National Salvage Drive required him to 'donate' it to the war effort. 'St Just'—the name-plate—had duly disappeared the way of many tons of Hastings decorative ironwork. These days, Foyle and the postman had to settle simply for the number 31. A stay of execution, though, was granted to his iron railings—in recognition of the very real risk that their removal would result in broken necks. Without them, careless passers-by could fall into the hole outside Foyle's basement window. But Foyle was under no illusion: if things had got too desperate— which, at the end of '41, they nearly had—the men with hacksaws would undoubtedly have taken them, and hang the consequences.

Except America, God bless her, had then stepped in and saved his ironwork by entering the war.

Back in the Sea Terrace Restaurant, the brown-eyed lady with the ankles smiled inquiringly at both her gentlemen callers. A row of perfect white teeth flashed their dazzling advertisement for American dentistry. Foyle wagered quietly that if ever this one smiled while outdoors during blackout, she'd attract a _'Put that bloody light out'_ admonition from the ARP.

Remembering his manners, which were never far away in any of his dealings, professional or private, Foyle tipped his hat and nodded warmly back at her. "Good afternoon, Madam. DCS Foyle. This is my sergeant, Mr Milner."

"Dee Cee Ess." She raised an eyebrow. "Darned if I know what _that_ means. But _sergeant_… You're... dee-_tec_tives?" Jocelyn looked Milner up and down from under sooty lashes. "Am Ah under arrest?" Her dark eyes flashed in open mischief.

_A flirt._ Foyle pursed his lips and cast his eyes sideways towards Milner, whose cheeks had taken on a heightened colour.

"Not at all, Madam," Milner stared at her, clearly unnerved. "We do need to take the names of all witnesses, however."

Foyle took pity on his sergeant. "What brings you here to Hastings, _Miss, _er, St Just? If you don't mind my asking?" he inquired pleasantly.

"_Mrs._" Jocelyn—also a dee-tective—identified and answered his real question first, then moved on to address the ballast of his inquiry. "But not at _all_, DCS Foyle. I have a little leave. From the American Red Cross…and was seduced"—she said _Amurrican_ and _sedooced_—"by the incredible façade of this amazing building. I just _had_ to come explore the inside of this place."

Foyle rocked on his heels and gestured sardonically around him. "So, um, wha'd'you think so far?" There was a certain amount of blood on a nearby tablecloth.

"Guess Ah'm lucky. Came in for lunch. Got dinner and a show." Her eyes sought his and sparkled in amusement.

Foyle found himself _sedooced_ by humour so akin to his own, and managed a lopsided grin. "We, um, aim to please." His eyebrows lifted, handing her the witticism as a personal gift. Thoughts moved in, unbidden, to crowd his mind, beginning with '_She's married, then?'_ and ending with '_So what the __**devil**__ business would that be of yours, in any case?'_

As if on cue, Jocelyn obligingly made it his business. "Mah late husband always _loved_ live entertainment with his food. I guess he woulda rated _this_ show pretty high..."

Inexplicably, Foyle found he had a healthy appetite for Jocelyn St Just's voice. So when she then went on to relate in exhaustive detail precisely what she'd seen, he listened to her account with keen enjoyment. Jocelyn, he noted, had a rare gift for observation.

With sombre dedication, Milner noted down her memories of the incident, before thanking her politely and moving on. Feeling that Milner had been a little cool with such a helpful witness, Foyle was moved to append his own approval. "I appreciate your telling us all that," he said, casting her a grateful smile. "Thank you for taking the trouble."

Her accent broadened into pure, soft, southern comfort. "Why you're vurry welcome, Dee Cee Ess Foyle." Again, the thousand-watt beam lit her features, and Foyle developed an unusual urge to linger.

He fumbled for a reason so to do. "But your, um, luncheon was disrupted. I trust, er, that we haven't given you a bad impression of British table-manners?" His face spelt genuine regret with just a tinge of mischief.

Jocelyn's eyes lit up at the chivalrous apology, reading into it precisely what lay underneath the surface. "Jury was out for a little while," she began beguilingly, glancing up at him from under her lashes. "Then, _you_ walked in, and I guess you tipped the balance back in England's favour."

Foyle twisted his lips. Was she flirting with _him_? With Milner, he could understand... He had lingered perhaps too long at her table, and his sergeant was casting questioning glances back in his direction. His nerve failed him. "Thank you," he said simply, lifting his hat once more. "I should, um, probably…" he gestured towards Milner.

"Duty calls," she supplied obligingly, with the slightest undercurrent of a tease. Then she sighed. "But I have high hopes of dinner…"

Foyle shot her a startled look. "I don't quite...?" _Was she angling for an invitation?_

"Dinner. Here." Jocelyn gave a bell-like laugh. "I just _loved_ this place so much, I booked a room. I'm stayin' here. So at dinner tonight, I'm hopin' that they'll hold the sideshow."

"Hold… a _sideshow_…?" Foyle's eyebrows climbed. She expected an exhibition, or a circus act?

Jocelyn smiled at his difficulty. "Hold it. Cut it out. No more _'dramma'_. I wanna dine in peace."

Understanding (and relief) was vouchsafed to Foyle.

"I seee! Indeed, then I wish you a peaceful evening, Mrs St Just."

"Thank you, DCS Foyle."

As he made to move off, the steady hum of conversation in the restaurant almost masked her words.

"Wouldn't care to join me, I suppose? Scare off the bad criminals? Keep… the _peace_?"

He halted, wondering if he'd misheard. "Would I…?"

"For dinner. Join me for dinner." The earlier amusement had left her eyes. Jocelyn's expression was serious, bordering on the anxious, he could see.

"Um, I don't think…"

"Have I shocked you?"

"Not at… um…"

"Sure I have. The States are short on men and long on widows. We don't beat around the bush. No wedding ring, I see." She placed her index finger in her mouth, then lowered it to point at his left hand.

"I, um. It's not usual here for men to wear… I lost my wife ten years ago."

"My husband died of meningitis in the fall of 'thirty-six. So. Wanna eat with me tonight?" This time the eyes above the smile contained a plea.

Foyle blinked at her. Did he _wanna eat,_ or continue to starve? He reviewed his appetite in the new light of Jocelyn St Just, and nodded once. "Provided you'll allow that dinner is my treat."

"You're very kind, _Dee Cee Ess Foyle_." This time the formal mode of address was stressed too pointedly to ignore.

"Christopher, by the way. My, um, name."

"Well, my! Mah middle name is Christine. Two Chrisses crossin' paths. I wonder just what _else_ we have in common." Jocelyn's pleasure at the similarity in their names was childlike.

"Looking forward to finding out." Foyle hesitated, half-dazed at what the blazes he was playing at. Once again he indicated Milner. "I really should, um…"

Jocelyn beamed, and nodded to release him. Foyle turned to go, then raised a finger to his temple, remembering there was unfinished business. He spun on one toe, overcoat swinging round his legs like a dance-skirt. "Quarter-to-seven suit? In the Piano Bar?"

Jocelyn nodded gravely, this time suppressing a smile. "Suits me just fine, Christopher."

"Um. Splendid." Foyle tipped his hat one final time and moved away to join Milner. As he walked off, he made a mental list of topics he might broach that evening, starting with the name Jocelyn shared with his house, and ending… how? In some strange way, because she'd lost a husband, he could actually imagine discussing Rosalind. And loneliness.

…

That evening, as Sam deposited him outside 31 Steep Lane, Foyle almost asked her to wait for him while he changed, then drive him to The Royal V. It wouldn't take him more than half an hour to wash, change and shave, but something about the idea of Sam delivering him to this particular engagement didn't feel quite comfortable.

When it came to the crunch, he simply thanked her, and sent her off with a "See you in the morning, Sam. Usual time."

As soon as Sam had pulled away, he let himself into the house and disappeared upstairs to pick out fresh clothes, settling on a royal blue silk tie and navy braces with a dark grey flannel suit and matching waistcoat. He took extra care with his ablutions, patting his face with gentlemen's cologne; then ran a comb across his pate to tame the increasingly sparse wisps of hair. Jocelyn St Just, he reflected, hadn't seen him properly yet without a hat. He wondered if she had any opinions on men with thinning hair.

By twenty to seven, he was striding downhill to East Parade, and quickly found a taxi for the short ride along the seafront to St. Leonards. Five minutes later he walked into the piano bar of The Royal V, and spotted Jocelyn sitting in the window with a book and what looked very like a G&T.

Foyle raised his hat. "You, um, started without me?" he teased her lightly.

"Don't grudge a girl a little Dutch courage!" she countered. "Have a seat, why don'tcha?" Foyle removed his hat and settled himself into the chair next to hers. Jocelyn signalled to the barman. "What's your tipple, Christopher?"

"Um, single malt, or failing that, I'll have a pint. You're on—what?—vodka? gin?"

"Uh-huh. You've guessed it: gin. I only drink clear alcoholic liquids. So it's _this_ stuff," she waved her glass, "or champagne."

"Oh. Well… I could always ask..." Foyle planted both hands on his knees and made to rise.

"No! No need!" Jocelyn placed a restraining hand on his right knee. "It's a treat to have, but I can live without it. Gives me somethin' to look forward to for celebrations. Save it for better times?"

They fell into easy conversation, starting with the meaning of DCS, and the attendant frustrations of police work in wartime.

In due course, it was Jocelyn's turn. "My husband's death left me very comfortably off," she sighed, "…but very bored. After Pearl Harbor, I felt I had to do something useful, and I already had some experience of First Aid, so it seemed sensible to join the Red Cross. Always loved the idea, too, of visiting England—excuse me! I should say Britain. Tell me you're not Welsh or Scottish. Don't wanna send your hackles risin'!"

Foyle smiled warmly. "Nnup. In fact, Foyle is a French name. Very likely Norman. Like, um, St Just?"

Jocelyn grinned. "I guess that background would've tickled Greg. But I can't lay personal claim to the heritage. _My_ folks are Norrises!"

Foyle prepared to amaze her. "Even better. Norris is also a good Norman name. It comes from the old French word 'norrice', meaning 'tender of the sick'. Quite apposite, considering your current occupation, I'd say."

"How d'ya _know _all this stuff?" she looked at him incredulously.

"I read," he told her modestly. "In Hastings, it's impossible to avoid the local history. _1066 and All That_."

"Come again?" Jocelyn meant to say she didn't understand.

Foyle summarised. "The Normans—French invaders—wrested England from the Saxons here. It happened in 1066. Pretty much changed the landscape of the country."

_1066 and All That. _Foyle's mind drifted back to Andrew's schooldays. His young son had come home from school brandishing a 'wizard read', lent to him by one of his friends. "It's a hoot, Dad. Have a shufti at this!" Together they'd devoured the book, huddled together on the settee. They'd read out passages to Rosalind in the kitchen. He could still hear her, chortling heartily at the book's subversive wit. Less than one month later, his wife was dead. There hadn't been much laughter after that. Pretty much changed the landscape of his life. And Andrew's.

He wrenched himself away from the poignant memory. "No doubt you've noticed there's a castle…?"

"Oh sure! The ruins. Only from a distance. I was curious, but your military fellas have it pretty much locked down. Lotsa 'Restricted Area' signs and barbed wire. I guess it's not a good time for tourin' Merrie England right around now." She gave a little laugh. Jocelyn's was a light bell. Rosalind's a low, rich chuckle. "But I _adore _the view of the ocean from up there, castle or no castle."

_Not 'sea', but 'ocean', _noted Foyle. Americans perceived things on a grander scale.

After dinner, they took a stroll along the esplanade. The evening had turned cool and Foyle shrugged off his jacket and made to place it around Jocelyn's shoulders to keep out the worst of the sea breeze.

"No," she protested mildly. "_You'll_ be cold."

"I'm perfectly fine," he shrugged, hands in pockets—a vision in his crisp shirt, waistcoat, tie and braces. "Police work toughens you up."

Jocelyn turned to face him. "No need for tough with me." She ran her hands briskly up and down his cotton-clad arms, as if to warm him, carefully keeping her eyes below the level of his broad shoulders. _God forgive me! He has muscles under there, and I'm just beggin' for his arms around me._

Gently, Foyle extricated himself and caught her hands, bringing them both up to his lips. Jocelyn barely dared to meet his eyes, but when she did, she couldn't tear her own away, for they were scintillating azure pools, and crinkled with a poignant kindness she remembered from her early days of marriage to her husband. Still holding her hands between his own, he guided her so that her back leant against the rail along the esplanade, and brought his lips down softly onto hers.

For the second time that day, Foyle felt like lingering. The kiss was soft and, though only mildly exploratory, it was enough to tell him that it could become much more. Jocelyn began to shiver under his embrace, and Foyle's arm slid around her back, supporting her.

"Still feeling the chill?" he hummed into her lips.

"Can't blame the climate for _this _one. I haven't kissed like this in oh-so-long, Christopher."

"Well, that makes two of us, then." His left thumb stroked her cheek, and he leaned into her. There was no mistaking how the kiss affected him. The insistent pressure of his covered flesh against her navel, coupled with the long-absent flutter in her abdomen. Not a shadow of doubt where this would lead if they let it. Their breathing quickened as the kiss deepened—neither could have said who was responsible for that.

"Take it inside, will ya, Guv'nor? Jerry's gettin' the signal loud and clear across the bleedin' Channel in Dieppe." It was a cheery enough admonition from the ARP warden on patrol along the seafront. He'd managed to approach them with a total lack of stealth, so absorbed were they in each other.

Foyle straightened sharply. The situation was already embarrassing enough, but things were about to get worse.

"Mister Foyle? Is that you, Sir?"

Drawing back from Jocelyn, Foyle took a deep breath, stretched his eyes and turned. "Indeed it is, Mr Enderby. All quiet on the, er, St Leonard's front?"

"Will be in a minute, Sir. Don't linger now." Enderby saluted him with a smirk, tipped his tin hat to Jocelyn, and carried on along the esplanade.

Jocelyn brought her hand up to her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

Foyle shrugged. "Can't be helped. My own fault. Behaving like a schoolboy." He kicked himself. "Um, not that I wouldn't… er… wish for an encore… sometime. Soon, even."

"Stay. For a nightcap."

"I'd… um… that would be…" Foyle desperately reviewed his commitments for the morrow. Sam would be on his doorstep at half-past-seven for a trip to Rye. He exhaled irritably, shifting a leg to ease the rampant discomfort. "Better not. Early start, tomorrow…"

Jocelyn looked aside, in clear disappointment, and bit her lip. Foyle fancied that her eyes were glistening.

He reached for her hand. "I, um. Jocelyn? Would you… let me…? How soon can we see each other again?"

She turned to him, and he could see the welling tears clearly now. "My leave of absence ends tomorrow. They're movin' me on on Monday afternoon. Not even sure where _to,_ yet."

Foyle's eyes were glazed with weariness and want. He pinched between his eyes. "Look. I've got police business which will take up most of tomorrow morning, maybe into early afternoon. But we could meet for dinner here again…" There was the faintest pleading, verging on desperation, in his eyes. "Tomorrow, I could come in for that nightcap…"

"Sure." She smiled sadly. "We should do that." Her response felt to him a little absent. She let out a pensive sigh. "Christopher… mebbe I shoulda let you be. This is even _harder, _now that I know you better." Her shoulders slumped under his hands, making her look tiny and deflated.

"I agree." He grimaced, looking out to sea. "I mean, I agree that it's hard. Glad you didn't 'let me be', though. Tremendously glad."

"I like England," supplied Jocelyn, enigmatically, gazing out to sea. "I like the English."

Foyle persisted. "Dinner tomorrow, then? With one Englishman?"

Jocelyn stroked his cheek. "Sure, Christopher. I wouldn't have it any other way." She sent him her most radiant smile yet.

_Put that bloody light out,_ thought Foyle, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

******** TBC ********

**More Author's Notes:**

Rumour has it that many hundreds of tons of scrap iron and ornamental railings snaffled for The War Effort were actually dumped in the Thames Estuary because Britain had no structure in place for processing this ironwork into weapons of war.

Fortunately, 'St Just' is still safely screwed to the outside of "Foyle's house" in Hastings. I have it on authority from hazeleyes57 that the name is masked with stone-coloured paper whenever _Foyle's War_ scenes are being filmed there.

…

More soon.

**GiuC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Victory Roll – Chapter 2**

**Summary:**

May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.

_Chapter 2_: The story continues next morning as Sam and Foyle return from Rye.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

In late May/early June of 1940, the Rye fishing fleet was invited to participate in the evacuation of the stranded British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of Dunkirk—but declined to do so. The published source of this information is Angus Calder's book, _The Myth of the Blitz_, which offers various evidence that not all of Britain "pulled together" during World War II. But this should be no surprise to fans of _Foyle's War_. Foyle is always picking the nastier bits of Britain off his shoe.

I make no judgement about the decision taken by the fishermen of Rye, but have simply used the incident as a reference point for imagined repercussions.

…

In March of 1942, the Germans adapted certain of their fighter-aircraft to carry bombs. This gave rise to a different brand of air assault, termed _tip-and-run raids_, whereby the German fighter would make a quick pass over the Channel, tip its load of bombs, and scurry back to France. The first tip-and-run raid on Hastings happened on 17 May 1942. Four Messerschmitt Bf 109s were reported to have circled the town, strafing the streets in the West Hill area, just above the OldTown. Though only one woman lost her life in that particular raid, there were many subsequent attacks, with heavy loss of life to the townspeople.

...

This story is still for _dancesabove._ Because she's worth it ;o)

* * *

**_Previously, in "Victory Roll"_**

_He reached for her hand. "I, um. Jocelyn? Would you… let me…? How soon can we see each other again?" _

_She turned to him, and he could see the welling tears clearly now. "My leave of absence ends tomorrow. They're movin' me on on Monday afternoon. Not even sure where _to_ yet."_

_Foyle's eyes were glazed with weariness and want. He pinched between his eyes. "Look. I've got police business which will take up most of tomorrow morning, maybe into early afternoon. But we could meet for dinner here again…" There was the faintest pleading, verging on desperation, in his eyes. "Tomorrow, I could come in for that nightcap…"_

_"Sure." She smiled sadly. "We should do that." Her response felt to him a little absent. She let out a pensive sigh. "Christopher…mebbe I shoulda let you be. This is even _harder_ now I know you better." Her shoulders slumped under his hands, making her look tiny and deflated._

_"I agree." He grimaced, looking out to sea. "I mean, I agree that it's hard. Glad you didn't 'let me be', though. Tremendously glad." _

_"I like England," supplied Jocelyn, enigmatically, gazing out to sea. "I like the English."_

_Foyle persisted. "Dinner tomorrow, then? With one Englishman?"_

_Jocelyn stroked his cheek. "Sure, Christopher. I wouldn't have it any other way." She sent him her most radiant smile yet._

Put that bloody light out_, thought Foyle, his eyes crinkling at the corners._

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**Sunday, 17****th**** May 1942**

"What makes you think he did it, Sir?" Sam was all ears as they drove back from Rye.

"Scoines was heavily influential in the collective decision not to sail for Dunkirk. If he'd agreed to go, the others would've followed. But as things stood, he dug his heels in. Two of Wenham's sons died on the beach awaiting rescue. The refusal of the Rye fleet to sail had no direct impact on those particular deaths, I'm sure, but that wouldn't have altered Wenham's view of Scoines."

"How will you prove it, Sir?"

"Can't prove a thing. Yet. Motive's not enough. But it's a decent start."

"Why on a Sunday then, Sir? It's our… it's your day off. Couldn't it have waited for in the week?"

Foyle's mouth quirked up at the side. "You, um, notice anything particular about Wenham, Sam?"

"Not sure what you mean, Sir. Except that he's a vicar… But I tend not to see that as being unusual. All of the men in my family are vicars. And my grandfather was a..."

"Bishop. Right," Foyle grinned. "So, thinking like a vicar for a moment, which day of the week would you least like to have an official-looking car outside your church, a uniformed driver, and a nosey policeman flashing his warrant card around and asking questions in public view?"

Sam's eyes lit up. "Of course, Sir! Sunday! What with nerves about the sermon thrown in… and the fear of losing your composure in front of the congregation. Perfect."

"Mmm. Rest my case. Anyway, the day's still young. When we get back to town, take a detour in via West Hill, will you?"

"Right-oh, Sir. Lovely clear day, isn't it? Bit of a stiff wind, mind you…"

As they drove along the Hastings hilltop road, Foyle gazed across the open grassy land that lay between the roadway and the sea, and asked himself whether his eyes deceived him.

The figure of a woman, head thrown back, and arms stretched wide against the breeze was twirling, _dancing?_ on the grass about a hundred yards away. Foyle wound his window down, shading his eyes to get a better look. _Jocelyn? _

He turned to Sam. "Um, drop me here, Sam, would you please?"

"But Sir, it's a two-mile walk back to the station."

"I, ah, need to stretch my legs. Just drop me here."

Sam sighed and pulled over. She noticed Foyle's attention being drawn across the grass, and her brows knitted. Spying the lone female figure on the hilltop, an uncomfortable pang of she-wasn't-sure-what struck through her chest.

"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer me to wait while you walk, Sir? I've nothing else to do…"

"Nup. No need; thank you, Sam. I'll just walk home from here. File my report tomorrow." An important detail of engagement nudged his memory. "Shan't, er... be needing you tomorrow morning, by the way. I'll make my own way in. Probably be late. _Definitely _shall, in fact."

Sam blinked in confusion. Her boss was _never_ late in. She opened her mouth, preparing to ask him the reason, then thought better of it. Her own sudden—what was it?—_hurt_, more than failure of courage—left her flushed with annoyance—indignation, almost.

Foyle didn't notice any of this. His attention was too firmly fixed upon the figure on the hill. He opened the door and got out of the Wolseley. The stiff breeze hit him square on, and he jammed his hat down firmly on his head, buttoning his overcoat against the wind. As an afterthought, he turned to take his leave of Sam, leaning down to peer back into the cabin. He fancied that her face was unusually flushed. Concerned, he placed both hands on the sill of the opened car window and tilted his head. "Sam? You all right?" he asked kindly.

"Mmm. Tickety boo, Sir." She didn't turn to meet his gaze, staring hard ahead, in order to contain the sudden rush of moisture to her eyes. "Grit in my eye. Quite bothersome, actually."

"Here, um, take this." Foyle reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and handed it through the window to her.

She didn't reach to take it. "No, thank you, Sir," she told him coolly. "Very kind, but I'll be all right. I have my own if I need it."

"Well, then, see you tomorrow at the station?" He waited, eyebrow cocked, for an answering nod. When finally he'd received it, he stepped back from the car and rapped briskly on its roof. Sam pulled off, and for a few seconds he stood, hands in pockets, watching the car disappear, chewing thoughtfully on his inside cheek. Something had clearly bothered her, but she wasn't going to tell him what. Then he turned towards the figure on the hill.

As he picked his way across the open grass, he shook his head, smiling quietly to himself and wondered, _What's she doing larking around out up here?_

"Jocelyn!" he called.

The figure turned. Realising instantly who was calling to her, she waved enthusiastically.

Foyle quickened his pace. To his amused delight, Jocelyn began to run towards him. So he halted, the corners of his mouth turned up in frank and open pleasure.

"Christopher!" She was a little winded by the time she reached him, bending over to catch her breath, both hands braced against her thighs. "How did you know I'd be up here?"

"I didn't," he shrugged, smiling as he realised she must have planted the seed of this location in his mind the night before. "But you _did _say that you liked the view out to sea. I had my driver bring me along here on a whim."

"Your driver? Where is he now?" Jocelyn perched a hand above her eyes and scanned the road.

"She. Samantha. Sent her back to the station. No more appetite for work today." He smiled. The subtext was …_now I've found you._

"Your driver is a _woman_?" Jocelyn stretched her brown eyes in surprise. "Although I don't suppose I ought to find it strange. We do so much now that we didn't do. But women drivers in the police?"

"Entirely common these days. I don't drive myself… unless I have to. Cuts into my thinking time." He offered Jocelyn his arm. "Shall we walk? I—er—don't dance much, either." When she raised her eyebrows questioningly, he went on, "Just in case you had plans to resume your gambolling across the grass," he teased. "In which case, I would beg to be excused."

Jocelyn laughed. "Aww! You saw my little freedom dance! What did ya think?"

He gave her his best restrained smirk of appreciation. "Very, um, energetic."

"I just felt so energised the moment I got up here," she explained. "What with being in England… meeting you…"

She beamed up at him then, disengaged herself and ran ahead, spreading her arms in a gesture of liberation. Foyle plunged his hands into his pockets, dropped his chin, and surveyed her from beneath his brows. His cheek was taking furious punishment in an attempt to stave off a full-blown smile.

Pirouetting back towards him, Jocelyn called out joyfully, "It feels like hoooooome!"

The late spring breeze lifted her voice and carried it echoing across the grass. It struck Christopher as one of the happiest sounds he had ever heard, but all at once the tones were met and marred by the hollow, discordant wail of an air raid siren. Its doleful, waxing-waning whine first melded with, and then usurped Jocelyn's lyric cry of freedom.

In a matter of seconds, the siren's warning also was drowned—this time beneath the strident, baleful drone of a single Messerschmitt flying low across the hill towards them. Foyle swivelled in alarm. The fighter-bomber had come seemingly from nowhere, and now pursued a low, menacing trajectory that threatened to collide with both their heads.

"Jocelyn!" Foyle yelled. "Look out!" He cast around in search of cover, but recognised, despairingly, that there was none. The wide green space around them was as open and devoid of shelter as it was possible to be. He saw Jocelyn lift startled eyes and recognise the horror of the fighter plane bearing down upon them from inland. There was no place of safety—no refuge from the shark-grinned grey nemesis that seemed hell-bent on mowing them to the ground.

Seeing her panic and turn to flee, Foyle ran full-tilt at Jocelyn, hurling himself against her from behind. The impact of his weight knocked her face-down onto the grass. He fell full-length beside her, half-covering her body with his own.

With an almost lazy inevitability, the rat-tat-tat of automatic gunfire started up behind them. Jocelyn whimpered next to him, "Oh my God…" Foyle grappled for her left wrist, which was stretched along the ground above her head, and drew it back towards them, tucking it in tight against her torso. Deliberately, he shifted his full weight on top of her to shield against the bullets, pressing her petite frame hard into the ground. Reaching up with his free hand, he shoved his trilby hard down on his head, then screwed his eyes tight shut and prayed.

Beneath his weight Jocelyn was struggling to breathe; though Foyle was aware of her distress, he dared not lift himself an inch, for fear it would expose her to the deadly air assault.

As the deafening roar and sputter of the aircraft engine drew inexorably closer, bullets ploughed though the ground on either side of them, sending clods of earth up several feet into the air and showering their prone bodies with hail of grass and soil. Foyle let out a sharp cry of pain as a white-hot poker seared his upper right arm through his overcoat.

The pass was over in a few short seconds, and the stuttering scream of engines receded to a low drone as the aircraft cleared the hill and headed out to sea. Peeling his eyelids open one at a time, Foyle twisted his head and squinted gingerly out from underneath his hat, expecting to see the Messerschmitt turn about and make a second rush at them.

Incredibly, it carried on into the distance, turning a single, leisurely victory roll in arrogant farewell. Then it saluted with a dip of its wings and faded slowly to a dot on the horizon.

_Bastard! _Foyle felt his heart thundering in his chest as he tried to calm himself with measured breathing. A soft moan came from underneath him. "Can't… breathe… Christopher…"

Immediately Foyle tried to lift himself, but even as he attempted to lever his weight off his companion, he hissed in pain and collapsed back down again. The injury to his right shoulder was preventing him from moving. And his right leg seemed to be failing him as well.

"Jocelyn…" he panted. "Forgive me. I've been hit. Can't move… without… some help. Perhaps you could..."

"Oh, Lord!" she gasped weakly. "How bad is it?" Jocelyn tried with slow, squirming motions, to inch from underneath him.

"Not… too bad… I think…" he grated out, "Just… bloody… painful. _Christ!_"

Eased a little by his reassuring words, Jocelyn made a first concerted effort to manoeuvre herself up onto her elbows by pushing with her bent forearms. The attempt failed miserably, but it at least won her enough space to breathe comfortably again. Foyle was as good as a dead weight on top of her. She could even feel the large, round buttons of his overcoat pressing hard into her spine.

"Strugglin' here," she panted, gamely. "Mebbe you could just push on the ground a liddle, with your left hand? Let go-a my wrist, huh?"

Foyle winced in discomfort. "Right. The angle isn't ideal, but..." He released his grasp on Jocelyn's wrist and searched for purchase on the grass beneath them. Jocelyn had managed to manoeuvre very slightly over onto her right side, pushing the left side of her torso an inch or two off the grass with her left forearm. As Foyle's hand felt for where he thought the ground should be, and pushed, he instead encountered soft, art-silk clad flesh, and was startled by a sharp gasp from underneath him. He had inadvertently found her left breast.

_Christ!_ He snatched away his hand and set it down again, this time on bare flesh he presumed to be her forearm. "Jocelyn, I do apologise…"

"For what?" she breathed. "Savin' my life? Wanna push down on what you're holdin' now? You're fine, _there_… Heyyy… there ya go!"

Foyle felt the delicate bones of her arm under his fingers as he pressed down, finally finding sufficient leverage to raise himself for just long enough so that Jocelyn could slide out from underneath. Immediately she was free, he collapsed back down again, the pain in his right shoulder too intense to maintain the position.

Jocelyn scrambled to her feet and jumped across him to his other side.

"Lemme get you over on your left side… hold it…"

Foyle tucked in his left arm as Jocelyn knelt and gently rolled him up onto his left flank. She frowned, examining the blood-soaked shoulder pad of his overcoat.

"Shame they don't pad these things with chain mail," she quipped. "Like those Ancient Normans you were harpin' on. Looks like the bullet went in back, and came out front. Question is, how much of _you_ did it take with it? I can't tell under all this darn material…" Her gaze drifted down his right side, and her breath caught for an instant. "Lordy, Christopher. They gotcha in the leg, too."

Foyle had been too busy concentrating on his shoulder pain to pay too much attention to his lower half, but now that he pulled in his chin to inspect himself, he could see a spreading dark red patch on the woollen cloth covering his upper thigh.

Jocelyn's voice took on a purposeful tone. "Gonna take a look. Sorry, buddy. You've gotta lose the pants-leg."

Breathing steadily through his nose as calmly as he could, Foyle watched her crawl the few feet to retrieve her handbag from the ploughed up grass, then delve inside. After a few seconds her hand emerged holding a pair of nail-scissors and a small parcel, wrapped carefully in an embroidered handkerchief.

Moving his overcoat carefully aside where it draped across the upper part of his thigh, she cut horizontally round the blue serge of his right trouser-leg, detaching it mid-thigh.

"Bloody good suit ruined," grumbled Foyle; then winced "Sssss!" as Jocelyn peeled back the material from his bleeding flesh.

"Sorry once again," she told him in a sing-song tone, "but I need to be speedy here." Jocelyn made a quick inspection of the wound, then undid the handkerchief-wrapped parcel she had taken from her bag and, unfolding the soft pad within, pressed it firmly down onto the bloody gash on the outside of his thigh.

Foyle raised an eyebrow even as he winced. Jocelyn had just staunched the bleeding with a sanitary towel.

She caught his expression and shrugged. "I _know_, I know… Not exactly carrying a full first aid kit, here. Havin' to think on my feet."

Foyle widened his eyes innocently. "Never said a word."

"Sure. The silence blew out my eardrums." She slid her fingers round the soft flesh of his inside leg, feeling for the loops at each end of the towel. Foyle followed her motions with his eyes, flinching slightly. His breathing quickened. Jocelyn looked up sharply, fearful she had hurt him.

"Christopher, sorry, this won't take a moment." Deftly, she fed the handkerchief through the loops of the sanitary pad and tied the two corners in a firm knot, securing the whole affair round his upper leg like a bandage. Foyle held his breath and watched her closely, gnawing on the inside of his lower lip. When she removed her hands, he closed his eyes in palpable relief and exhaled.

Jocelyn sat back on her knees, hands on thighs, satisfied with her handiwork.

"So, that's my supplies exhausted. Now for the shoulder. I got a slip, but it's slippery. How 'bout you? You carryin' a handkerchief?" She grinned.

"One in my breast pocket, one in my trouser pocket."

"Hand 'em over, then."

"Bit, um, tricky." Foyle inclined his head toward his bleeding right shoulder. "Breast pocket's on my left. Can't reach it with the left hand; and the other handkerchief is in my right hip trouser pocket." He grimaced apologetically.

"Gotcha." Jocelyn slid her hand under the lapel of his coat and, with nimble fingers, withdrew a large square of material from his breast pocket. She looked at him sceptically. "Silk? You blow your _nose_ on blue silk?"

"Not at all. You didn't specify what kind of handkerchief. _That_ one's for decoration. Goes with my tie."

"Mr Foyle, I figure you for a bit of a dude." Jocelyn's lips parted, unveiling once again the dazzling American dentition.

"Mmmkind of you to say so. If, indeed, that was a compliment. Linen handkerchief's in my trousers. Hopefully, um, clean."

In fact it _was_ clean, he recalled. He had offered it to Sam and it had been refused.

Jocelyn crawled round and crouched behind Foyle to improve the angle of entry to his pocket. Careful not to disturb his shoulder, she pulled the flap of his overcoat fully back from his hip, and slid her hand gingerly into his trouser pocket. And slid. And slid.

"How deep _are_ these things?" she grumbled.

Foyle's jaw clenched in contemplation of the answer. "Fairly, um, deep," he told her, in a hoarse voice.

"Ooo-kaaay. Divin' in here. Hold your breath."

Foyle's face flushed scarlet, as the angle of his pocket fed her hand along the crease of his groin. He screwed his eyes shut. "I, um, can't apologise enough."

"Relax," she told him airily. "Can't be shy…when you're between a rock and a hard place."

Had he been able to see Jocelyn's face, Foyle would have read in it mischief and more than a little frank amazement at the rock-hard contents of his trousers.

When she withdrew her hand—which he fancied she did more slowly (or was it carefully?) than was absolutely necessary—she held a neatly folded square of Irish linen in her fingers.

Jocelyn let go the breath she had been holding. "Rather than cut your overcoat to shreds, I'm gonna reach in and apply this linen pad to the wound. But from the angle of the hole through the shoulder pad, I'm pretty sure you have a graze. No more."

Relieved that the focus of attention had transferred to his upper arm, Foyle voiced agreement. "It hurts like blazes, but I think you're right. Not my first bullet-wound. Had far worse than this."

"Sure you have, my brave soldier."

Jocelyn knelt in front of Foyle, as he lay propped on his left arm, and with painstaking care, loosened his tie, slipping her hand under his collar to undo the shirt button at his neck. Obediently, he raised his chin to give her better access, and as he did so, their eyes locked. Jocelyn considered for a moment lowering hers to the task in hand. Instead she held his gaze until she'd freed his collar and undone three more shirt buttons. Turning next to his waistcoat, she unbuttoned that fully. Then her fingers gently parted the cotton shirt, trailing across the flesh of his chest, and through the sprinkling of dark hair flecked with grey that peeped out over the top of his vest.

Foyle's eyes remained fixed on her face as she palmed the handkerchief in her left hand, and carefully slid her fingers underneath the cotton fabric of his shirt towards the shoulder wound.

As her hand neared its target, Foyle screwed his eyes shut against the sting of shirt material lifting off his torn flesh. There was a sharp intake of breath from both of them, but the extra discomfort was only momentary. By the time Jocelyn had placed the pad where she wanted it to be, he was breathing normally again.

As she withdrew her fingers, Foyle caught her wrist weakly with his right hand. "You, um… the back of your hand is bloody. Use the blue silk. Don't let it ruin your clothes," he told her, capturing her eyes with his.

"Ack! Clothes. I got plenny of 'em," she breathed, returning his unflinching gaze with equal and unwavering steadiness. "You just risked your life for me. Least I can do is allow you to bleed on me a little."

For a few seconds, neither of them moved. Then Jocelyn's eyes lowered to Foyle's mouth, and she leant in, slowly parting her lips to bestow a light kiss. He closed his eyes and answered with a shy intrusion of his tongue. Pulling back a little, she nipped gently on his lower lip. Her hand trailed from his open shirt and down his torso, ghosting past his belt towards his groin.

"You're hard to resist, DCS Foyle, in any shape. But in this weakened state, I guess I got you at my mercy."

Foyle glanced down at her hand and bit his inside-cheek. "You aren't, um, worried that I might, er, bleed to death?"

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow and allowed her hand to trail lower, stroking him experimentally through the front of his trousers. She shook her head. "Nuh-uh. Blood pressure seems puh-ritty normal down _here_…"

Foyle's eyelids fluttered closed as he traced his tongue along his upper lip. "Is this…" he murmured, "standard Red Cross training in _Amurrica_?"

Jocelyn grinned, pressing gently on him with her open palm. "Nothing _standard_ about _this_ at all."

His gasp was audible. His reaction palpable.

"Yeah," she purred. "As I figured. All normal here."

With that, she sat back on her knees. Seeing that his eyes were still closed, she reached out a forefinger and stroked his cheek.

"So, Christopher." Her tone was calm and business-like again. "I'm gonna run for help from one of those houses over there, then get you home and sort you out."

Foyle forced his eyelids open and she saw his blue eyes twinkle. "Well, um, lucky me."

Jocelyn had leant in for a parting kiss, when suddenly there was the sound of frantic honking in the distance that jolted them from their embrace. The police Wolseley, with Samantha at the wheel, came batting up the hill like something out of Keystone Kops.

Just as the car hove into view, the 'All Clear' siren sounded across Hastings.

As Foyle and Jocelyn watched open-mouthed, the Wolseley veered off-road, barely slowing as it cleared the kerb, and continued full-tilt towards the couple across the open grass, bouncing wildly across the intervening stretch until it drew up with a scream of brakes alongside them.

The driver's door flew open, and Sam flung herself across the few remaining feet of grass, landing breathless on her knees to face her boss. "Don't worry, Sir! I'm here!"

Foyle's eyes closed in a slow blink of exasperation. His voice was chilly, and he spoke through gritted teeth.

"Sam, the 'All Clear' has BARELY sounded, and you were DRIVING when it DID. WHY didn't you take COVER? You were driving IN an air raid when you SHOULD have been making for safety. WHAT if you had been KILLED? WhatEVER were you THINKING of?"

Jocelyn sat back on her knees and watched the exchange with interest.

Samantha blushed, then frowned and drew her top lip tight between her teeth, making a determined show of ignoring the tirade. She didn't look at her boss's face. Instead she reached down and set about unbuckling her shoulder bag.

"Well, now," she continued, as if nothing had been said, "let's see… I have… er… basic bandages and stuff in here, and then I'll get you to the hospital so they can patch you up."

"Samantha?"—this was Jocelyn, speaking gently to Samantha's back—"Hi. My name's Jocelyn. I've already staunched the bleeding. Things are under control here."

With a quick glance, Sam took in the sanitary pad arrangement on her boss's leg, and blushed afresh.

Foyle watched her carefully, and his voice was softer when he spoke this time.

"Sam. Listen. Other people are sure to need the attention more than I do. No need for hospital—these are only flesh wounds, and Mrs St Just here has training in first aid. Just, um, load me in the car and drive me home, would you?"

"Shouldn't we be asking an expert, Sir?" Sam glanced sideways at Jocelyn under lowered lids. "Just to be on the safe side."

"Sam… please do as I ask."

Sam huffed. "Well, Sir, if you insist."

"I do."

Jocelyn chimed in. "Don't fret. I got him, Sam. I've dressed a hundred bullet wounds. He'll be okay with me, on my honour."

Sam ignored Jocelyn. "Better get you in the car then, Sir." Sighing pointedly, she rose, strode across the grass to the Wolseley and opened the rear door.

As Sam leant inside to clear some papers from the back seat, ready to receive her boss, Jocelyn remarked _sotto voce, _"Man, your driver's got it bad for you."

Foyle looked at her in open puzzlement. "I'm sure you're wrong," he said.

******** TBC ********

**More Author's Notes:**

_"But women drivers in the police?"_

_"Entirely common these days..."_

Actually, it wasn't. Sam's secondment to the police has no precedent in real life that I've been able to discover. The women of the Mechanised Transport Corps drove ambulances in combat areas, and staff cars at home as well as overseas—but mainly for government departments and dignitaries.

If anybody's interested, there's a book called _"What a Way to Win a War"_, by Pat Hall, which relates the wartime experiences of a company of MTC women ambulance drivers serving in Egypt and Italy. In his foreword, Brigadier J. Clynton Reed, CBE, praises them as "a highly responsible and thoroughly reliable group of girls _(sic)_. Incidentally, their presence had an elevating effect on our general behaviour and turn-out..."

Yep. I bet.

The Brig goes on (and I like this bit because it's relevant to the story), "On the medical side, the effect on the morale of battle-weary patients who find themselves in feminine care for the last lap of their journey to hospital, cannot be over-emphasised."

Pat herself describes her comrades-in-oil as "an assorted bunch of self-willed women, drawn from the hunting field and the golf course, from the beauty salon and the secretarial desk... knitted together to form eventually a highly professional army ambulance unit."

Here's to the spunky women of the MTC. _Salute!_

...

More soon.

**GiuC**


	3. Chapter 3

**Victory Roll – Chapter 3**

**Summary:**

May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.

_Chapter 3: _Christopher is ferried back to Steep Lane and receives attention.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

**Author's Notes:**

There's also an **M**-rated version of this chapter, published separately as "**Victory Roll – Chap 3 (M)**" (but you will need to change your search-filter settings to "**Rated – M**" or "**Rating: All**", otherwise the M chapter won't be visible in the listing).

Too rich for your blood? Stick with this one. It's **T**-rated. A warmish "T".

…

Foyle is often seen wielding a fishing rod. As we also know, he is a man of integrity, and would never exaggerate the size of any catch. If you care to examine Foyle's fishing record, have a look at my other short fic, entitled _'On the Hook'_ – coincidentally, also set in May 1942. Do have a read of it first. It is short. Not, strictly speaking, a prequel to this fic, but there are themes in common. And there's a laugh in it for you, both there… and here. OK. Enough begging.

...

Sulfa powder was a mainstay of field medicine before the advent of antibiotics (which really only came into their own around 1944), and was usually introduced into wounds, after cleaning and debridement, in order to prevent bacterial infection.

...

You will certainly have heard that an English cynic famously described American GIs in Britain as _'overpaid, overdressed, oversexed and over here'_. The Americans amused themselves by countering that the British were_ 'underpaid, underdressed, undersexed and under Eisenhower'. _I can honestly say that, as I start this chapter of '_Victory Roll'_, I have no idea who'll finish up on top—England or America.

...

For _dancesabove, _connoisseuse of All Things CF.

* * *

**_Previously, in "Victory Roll"_**

_"Samantha?"—this was Jocelyn, speaking gently to Samantha's back—"Hi. My name's Jocelyn. I've already staunched the bleeding. Things are under control here."_

_With a quick glance, Sam took in the sanitary pad arrangement on her boss's leg, and blushed afresh._

_Foyle watched her carefully, and his voice was softer when he spoke this time._

_"Sam. Listen. Other people are sure to need the attention more than I do. No need for hospital—these are only flesh wounds, and Mrs St Just here has training in First Aid. Just, um, load me in the car and drive me home, would you?"_

_"Shouldn't we be asking an expert, Sir?" Sam glanced sideways at Jocelyn under lowered lids. "Just to be on the safe side."_

_"Sam… please do as I ask."_

_Sam huffed. "Well, Sir, if you insist."_

_"I do."_

_Jocelyn chimed in. "Don't fret. I got him, Sam. I've dressed a hundred bullet wounds. He'll be okay with me, on my honour."_

_Sam ignored Jocelyn. "Better get you in the car then, Sir." Sighing pointedly, she rose, strode across the grass to the Wolseley and opened the rear door. _

_As Sam leant inside to clear some papers from the back seat, ready to receive her boss, Jocelyn remarked _sotto voce,_ "Man, your driver's got it bad for you."_

_Foyle looked at her in open puzzlement. "I'm sure you're wrong," he said._

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Still Sunday, 17****th**** May 1942**

Having parked outside Foyle's house, Sam Stewart now hovered proprietorially at the Wolseley's rear door, on the side where her boss was seated. Bad enough already that it had been necessary for the St Just woman to occupy the rear seat next to her boss for their short journey back to Steep Lane, but—_infernal cheek!_—one of Sam's frequent, worried glances in the rear view mirror had caught the woman's hand resting lightly on Mr Foyle's bare knee! Poor Mr Foyle was leaning back against the leather upholstery with his eyes closed, quite powerless to defend himself. This was ignominy heaped on top of humiliation!

No sooner had Sam brought the Wolseley to a halt, than she had hauled the handbrake up with such a speed and force, it threatened to wreck the ratchet. Without pausing for breath, or to announce their arrival, she had scrambled from the cabin and rushed around to Mr Foyle's side of the car before the other woman had a chance to realise that they had actually reached their destination. Sam had no intention of allowing the interloper further access to her boss. _She_ was going to be the one to help him from his seat.

Foyle shifted himself with some difficulty, leading with his left leg, and Sam moved in smartly, bending with care to slide her right shoulder under his left arm.

"That's it, Sir. Soon have you on your feet."

Standing behind Sam, where she'd patiently taken up a waiting position, Jocelyn watched the younger woman methodically field enough of Christopher's weight to lever him upright. Moving smoothly to Foyle's other side, Jocelyn fed a supportive arm under his right elbow.

"Beautifully done, Sam," she offered, leaning slightly forward to smile round at Samantha.

Sensing the immediate and uncharacteristic _froideur_ exuded by his driver, Foyle offered an awkward, "Thank you, um, both." Though genuinely grateful for the ladies' joint solicitude, he had spent most of the short journey home contemplating Jocelyn's assessment of his driver's feelings toward him and, frankly, was beginning to feel rather like the meat inside a sandwich.

As they progressed slowly towards the steps of 31 Steep Lane, Sam ripped him from his private thoughts by prompting: "Key, Sir?"

"Yes, I'm sure I have it… somewhere," answered Foyle, preoccupied with keeping the weight off his right leg.

"Just tell me which pocket it's in, Sir, and I'll fish it out for you," pressed Sam.

Sam's obliging offer revived Foyle's memory of precisely where he'd put his key. And that memory caused him to blanch. The key lurked dangerously at the bottom of his left trouser-pocket. And Sam was offering to 'fish it out'. _Dear God, she would as well!_ Something had to be done, and quickly.

His head snapped round to capture Jocelyn's eyes, into which he conveyed a look of pure panic. Clenching his teeth in a deliberate rictus that amounted to an open entreaty for help, he drew her gaze with his, diagonally down and to the left towards his trousers, and prayed that she would take the hint.

Jocelyn didn't miss a beat. They had a situation here, and it was up to her to head it off at the pass. "Oooo-kayy! Hold him steady, please, Sam," she chirped brightly.

Before his driver could object, Jocelyn had womanhandled her half of Foyle to lean against the railings over to the right of the front steps. Quickly satisfying herself that he was stable, she darted round behind him.

Jocelyn's lightning manoeuvre blindsided Sam. Too absorbed in her support of Foyle, she couldn't stop her rival's hand from diving past her boss's hip, and down into his trouser pocket. Fearlessly Jocelyn dug for the key, and was already brandishing it confidently before Sam even had the chance to utter her indignant "Oh, I say!" of protest.

"Had to dig, but got a firm hold on the pesky liddle thing!" sang Jocelyn, tripping lightly up the steps to fit the key into the keyhole.

Mortified, Foyle stared rigidly ahead, enveloped in a cold sweat. But he need not have worried; Sam hadn't caught the nuance in Jocelyn's mischievous observation. She was more annoyed at having been pipped at the post over the key.

It took a few more minutes of careful manoeuvring to assist Foyle up the front steps and into the hall of 31 Steep Lane. Grateful to be on home territory at last, and finding himself conveniently next to the coat-cum-umbrella stand, Foyle detached himself from Jocelyn and reached for the sturdy walking stick parked inside it.

The stick had originally belonged to his father, and had stood there for years, unused. Then Andrew had borrowed it back in '40, when he was recuperating from being shot down in the Channel. Now, it seemed, Foyle would be putting it to similar use himself.

"Let me... just... try with this," he grated out. Removing his arm from Sam's shoulders, he attempted a step or two along the hall towards the stairs. The pain was hard, but (he was relieved to note) bearable. Under the watchful eye of his two minders, he made it to the sitting room and managed to lower himself into the most upright chair available—a wing-easy next to the hearth.

Foyle exhaled in relief. He'd made it this far. But his body was telling him he needed to lie down and rest. His mind equally was telling him that there was going to be no chance of peace with the same amount of feminine tension reigning in his sitting room as he'd felt in and around the car outside. He racked his brains. Milner would certainly be at the station, dealing with the aftermath of today's raid...

"Sam, thank you for everything. When you leave, would you please report straight in to Milner, and explain to him what's happened?"

Sam bridled. "Am I leaving then, Sir? I'd much rather stay here and look after you…" She looked pointedly back over her shoulder at the telephone on the hall table. "Couldn't I just telephone him?"

"This is important, Sam. There'll be other people injured, damage to property, criminals profiting from the chaos. You and the car will be of use. Can't have you hanging around here. It's a waste of valuable resource." _Nice one, old chap. _Foyle congratulated himself for the inspired touch. Then, in the next instant, he felt like a thorough bounder. Sam was kind and loyal and bloody useful on the team, and deserved more honest handling than she was getting from him in this moment. But on the other hand, he was in a tight corner, and the sweat was breaking on his brow... _God's sakes! Was a man to have no peace when he was shot to bits?_

Certainly no internal peace, he wasn't. Seeing her crestfallen expression, Foyle's features arranged themselves into a pained grimace, and he made Sam a consoling offer. "You can come and collect me tomorrow," he told her kindly. "But leave it until lunchtime, hmm? By that time, I'll be surer on my pins."

Sam wasn't going to be put off. "What about a doctor, Sir? Should I call one now?"

Foyle shook his head adamantly. "Nnnot a priority."

As Samantha opened her mouth and prepared to argue, Jocelyn intervened breezily, addressing Foyle. "Sooo! I'll take a proper look at your wounds now, shall I? And re-dress them. First aid supplies, Christopher…?"

Foyle nodded towards the hallway. "Cupboard under the stairs. Gauze, antiseptic, zinc ointment. Some of it might date back to my son's adolescent mishaps, but the stuff is serviceable."

"Okay. Now _if_, after I've looked, I think you need a doctor, then I'll call one." Jocelyn turned kind eyes on the young woman hovering in front of Foyle. "He'll be all right with me. Do you believe me, Sam?"

Sam was blinking in bewilderment. Had this woman just called her boss _Christopher_? Had she missed something? Her mind rewound the afternoon's events: inside the Wolseley, the woman had her hand on Mr Foyle's knee; up on West Hill, Mr Foyle had referred to her as Mrs St Just, but it now appeared obvious that this was some sort of sneaky front to hide their level of acquaintance. When Mr Foyle had spotted this woman on the hill, he had been anxious to get out of the car... _and be with her_. Now that she thought of it, it seemed likely Mr Foyle had asked her to drive home over West Hill on the off-chance that the woman was already there.

And now, here they all were. And to this woman, Mr Foyle was _Christopher_. And she, Samantha Stewart was just his driver.

Suddenly, painfully, it dawned on Sam that _she_ was the extra wheel.

Defeated, Sam closed her eyes and nodded once. "Yes, I suppose, um…" She bit her lip, adjusting to defeat. But even as the last chance faded to save a situation she was powerless to influence, inspiration struck! Sam raised her chin and addressed Jocelyn with faultless courtesy.

"Mrs St Just, as soon as you've attended to Mr Foyle, may I drop you somewhere? If not now, then perhaps in an hour?" She turned to Foyle, trying hard to hide her desperate need for him to grant her this, at least. "I'm sure you'd like Mrs St Just seen safely home, wouldn't you, Sir?"

Hoist with the petard of his own good manners, Foyle could do little else than stretch his eyes and incline his head politely, hoping for Jocelyn to step into the breach.

Which she did, and effortlessly so, in a voice both unruffled by animus, and suffused with genuine kindness. "Sam, that's _so_ thoughtful. But I have a hotel room just a short distance along the seafront. It would be so easy to walk back. Don't put yourself to the trouble. You have important work to do."

Forlorn, Sam saw her last chance disappear. She heaved a sigh of resignation. "I should be off then, Sir."

Foyle tilted his head, and scrunched his eyes, feeling for the words through pangs of something that felt oddly akin to guilt. "_Thank you_ for your _tremendous_ help, Sam. Please tell Milner I'll telephone him later… this evening. I should be more comfortable by then. And, um, Sam?"

"Sir?" Sam's back was straight, and she was staring fiercely ahead in an effort to keep her eyes from filling.

"I apologise for snapping at you on the hill. It was thoroughly boorish of me."

Sam swallowed. Her boss was throwing her a bone. She hardly knew what made her more miserable: the fact that she was pitiably pleased to have it, or the fact that he regarded her as pitiable. Worse still, he was apologising in front of this woman.

"Think nothing of it, Sir," she countered, coldly. "It was irresponsible of me to risk the car."

"That's not what I was concer…"

Before he could finish his sentence, Sam had turned on her heel, swept from the room and left the house.

Standing on the pavement outside, Samantha Stewart almost lost the battle with her tears. _Overdressed, overpaid... and over here_, fumed Sam miserably. Even in her grief, she stubbornly suppressed the epithet that would, in Jocelyn's case, have been the most apposite in this cynical assessment of Americans in Britain. _Mr Foyle would never lower himself._

Nevertheless, as she struggled to release the handbrake she'd applied with such unprecedented force when parking the car, tears of helpless anger began coursing down her cheeks unchecked, and soaked into the tunic of her uniform.

…

"Whoosh!" observed Jocelyn as the front door closed behind Samantha Stewart.

Perplexity was written on Foyle's face. "What did I say?"

Jocelyn shrugged. "You told her to go. Do I need to paint you a picture? _Told_ya she had it bad."

She rifled through the items she's retrieved from under the stairs and sighed in mild frustration. "No alcohol in this first aid kit, by the way. Got any spirits in the house?"

Foyle gestured perfunctorily to the remains of a bottle of Jack Daniel's on the bookshelf. "I can't believe it. Why would she…?"

Jocelyn stood before him and uncorked the whiskey. "Because she can smell it on us, Christopher. Sure as I can smell this"—she looked down at the bottle quizzically—"Tennessee hooch? The spirit's in the air."

"But I'm old enough to be…" Foyle's bluster was curtailed when Jocelyn bent and touched her lips to his.

"Mister," she breathed after a few seconds, "you're the hottest thing on two legs _I've_ seen in a while. Get used to the idea." She nipped his bottom lip. "Today, it just so happens you're on _one _leg, but as granny used to say, 'that makes no never mind'. Ya reckon we could leave your driver out of this, from here on in? Feels a liddle like she's watchin' us."

Foyle gazed up at her from under puckered eyebrows, but his eyes had darkened from the kiss. "Not a comforting image."

Jocelyn ran a hand under his chin. "_Somebody_ has a healthy beard. Do you shave twice a day?"

"What's that got to d…?"

"Nothing… everything…" her voice was singsong. "Got so little time to get to know ya. Want evurry teeny de_tail_. I'll be right back."

She hurried from the room, returning several minutes later with a bowl of warm soapy water that smelt of Dettol, and a selection of clean cloths and towels. "We're set," she sighed. "I'm gonna dress these wounds. Starting with the shoulder. Prepare to lose some layers." She leant and fed her arm around his left side to help him rise out of the chair.

"Jocelyn…" his left arm caught her round the waist and held her, so she had to rest her bottom on the armrest of the wing-easy. His eyes were pleading. "I should like to know you better, too. But look at me—I'm in an awful state."

"You leave the 'state' of you to me. I sorta like you in a state. If it weren't for the state of you," she winked, "I got an inkling you'd be harder to pin down."

Foyle smiled shyly. "You've got plans in that direction?"

"You betcha."

"In that case, you should know I'm somewhat… out of practice."

"That doesn't worry me. Pinning down is the fourth thing on my list. You get to warm up with the first three."

"A list-maker." Foyle raised an eyebrow. "Very organised."

"Not a fan of chaos," she purred softly, tracing a finger down his cheek. "But a _huge_ disciple of abandonment."

"Right." Foyle stretched his eyes. "So, Item One on this list would be…?"

"Dress your wounds, soldier." Jocelyn was back to businesslike. In a moment, she had eased him to his feet and was peeling off his coat and jacket with consummate care. Both, of course, were ruined, but as Foyle remarked, it hardly mattered, as the matching trousers were a write-off, too.

"Vest's salvageable, if a little bloody," Jocelyn observed, easing him out of his waistcoat. "And while you're standing up, we'll get you out of these, too." She started for his belt, but felt a light restraining grip on her wrist.

"I can do it."

"With your left hand?"

"Right one isn't entirely useless. I can grip a stick."

Jocelyn sighed contentedly. "Can't tell you how delighted I am to hear _that_. Might come in handy for Item Four."

"You're not going to make this easy, are you?"

"_Au contraire_. I look at it as oiling wheels." She waited patiently while he fumbled with the belt and then the buttons of his flies. These proved awkward, requiring more dexterity with his right hand than he could muster. "Here, let me help you…" she urged, gently easing his fingers aside.

"Jocelyn…" his voice sounded a warning note.

"Doesn't matter," she breathed, trailing a finger down his cheek. "Nothing matters." She stooped, and in a moment had eased his trousers smoothly down and round his ankles.

"You've obviously done a lot of this in your line of work," he observed, faintly embarrassed. Seeing her respond with a wry look, he amended, "Um. That came out wrong."

Jocelyn took his left hand and placed it on her shoulder to aid his balance as she helped him step out of his trousers. The severed right trouser-leg had already been discarded in the back of the Wolseley, where, for all she knew, it still lay.

"That's it, Honey. Hey though, sorta had you figured for a suspenders guy."

Foyle thought she probably meant braces. "Um. Newish trousers. Thought I'd try a belt for a change."

She gave him a droll smile. "Shirt next; then you sit down, Son, before ya fall down."

Foyle obediently submitted to removal of his shirt. He watched in enforced idleness as she freed the cufflinks from the French cuffs. After she had done so, Jocelyn slid her fingers up his forearms beneath his shirtsleeves.

"Not going to get very far like that," he observed sardonically.

"Aw. Don't I get to have _some_ fun while I work?" she grinned up at him, enjoying the sensation of running her fingernails through the soft layer of hair along his arms. She squeezed lightly, testing the sinews between wrist and elbow, and felt them tense beneath her hand.

"Showin' me your muscles? Well, let's take a _goood_ look." She eased the shirt first from his injured shoulder, then from the other arm. Foyle stood, docile, letting her undress him like a child. The wadded handkerchief Jocelyn had used to cover his wound was still in place. Though blood had seeped through to the surface of the square of cloth, thankfully no more was running down his arm.

"I think we'll get ridda this now," Jocelyn observed, running a finger under the shoulder strap of his singlet. She helped him feed his left arm back through the arm-hole, then duck his head though the neck and shrug it off his right side.

Finally he stood there, bare-chested in his trunks. Jocelyn placed a forefinger over his sternum, noting his well-muscled chest and slight softness round the midriff. In all, he was a pleasing sight, and she would have loved to linger and appreciate the view and feel of him. But she could tell that he greatly needed to sit down.

"Okay, Honey," she said gently, pushing lightly on his chest with her finger. "You can take a seat."

Foyle sank gratefully back into the wing-easy, wondering where in blazes his modesty had disappeared to. Nothing could have prepared him for the sensation of being undressed by this stunning woman. And the pain from his wounds did little to diminish the pleasure he was feeling from her proximity. She had barely touched him, and already his body was singing with arousal, his breathing growing shallow with anticipation of her hands on him once more. Everything about Jocelyn's behaviour and her body's language promised intimacy once his wounds were dressed. He only hoped the unaccustomed excitement wouldn't cause his body to disgrace him by reacting sooner than appropriate.

Jocelyn's eyes hadn't left his own as she had helped him back into the chair and removed his bloodied shoes and socks. But now that he was seated, they wandered unashamedly to that part of him that trumpeted excitement.

"I see ya. I'll be with ya. But I gotta fix these presents from _der Fűhrer _first."

Foyle smirked. She'd said _'durr Foorerr'_ with an obviously deliberate disrespect for German pronunciation. It put him in mind of Churchill's stubborn references to _'Nahzies'_, reputed to annoy Hitler something rotten. It amused him to imagine Jocelyn getting under Hitler's skin. She was certainly climbing under his, but not even remotely in the same way.

Jocelyn soaked cotton wadding with Jack Daniel's and bathed both wounds carefully, staunching any bleeding with light pressure from a folded cloth onto the injuries as she worked.

"So," she asked him casually, "whatcha doin' with a bottle of Jack?"

"Present from an invading army." Foyle grinned gamely through the sting of the alcohol on his wounds.

"Uh-huh."

When Jocelyn was satisfied both wounds were clean, she placed gauze on each, then prepared to apply proper bandages, starting with his shoulder.

"You were _vurry_ lucky, Christopher. The bullet gouged a pretty big piece of flesh offa the outside of your thigh, but no damage to the major blood vessels, or there'd be a lot more blood. Ploughed a furrow through the muscle, but the penetration's minimal."

She continued. "The arm's a similar situation. Took a nasty slice offa your deltoid. We know you can grip a walking stick. Can you grip my hand…?"

Foyle reached out to comply, and grasped her fingers. Jocelyn gave a satisfied nod. "Good thing you're so… well-developed, up there." She ran her fingers lightly up his arm. "You'll never miss just that liddle bit."

Foyle's lips quirked at the compliment. "I fish. This is my casting arm. I regularly land eleven-pounders, so…"

"Eleven-pounders?" Jocelyn rolled her eyes. Her father fished, so she was familiar with the licence taken by a fella in possession of a rod. "_Regularly? _Some real monsters in your Briddish rivers, huh?"

Foyle's lips twitched. "As it happens, I landed just such a monster last weekend. In the company of one of your countrymen. Point of fact, _he_ was the chap who brought that whiskey with him."

"Fish taste good? Musta fed ya aaall week…" Jocelyn's drawl was one of irony.

Foyle was suddenly subdued. "I, um... let her go."

"Come again?" Jocelyn was awed to think that a man in ration-blighted Britain could bear to pass up a fish of that size—well whatever size it _really_ was…

"She… It was too magnificent to eat."

"Man's gotta _eat_, Christopher. Nature's a beautiful thing, but a body needs fuel."

Foyle humphed. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Sam wasn't wrong, you know," Jocelyn offered conversationally as she bandaged his shoulder. "It wouldn't hurt to get you to a hospital."

"Nnno intention of going, though."

"Christopher…"

"Subject's closed. I go to hospital. They keep me in. You leave tomorrow. Not good. Treat me here."

"You're what we call a 'stubborn cuss', back home."

"Got something of a name for being 'bolshy' over here. Can't say it's ever influenced decisions that I make."

"Ballsy?"

"Bol-shy."

"I don't know what that means."

"Means… I won't be 'managed'."

"Uh-huh. I see. You may need sulfa powder in the wound…"

"Got any on you?"

"No I haven't."

"Then I'll do without."

"Yeah, you sure _are_ bol-shy."

Once Foyle's shoulder was finished, Jocelyn knelt in front of him in preparation to dress his thigh. She braced his calf on her knee and rolled the bandage expertly round the inside of his leg, passing gauze underneath and round the damaged muscle. From under hooded lids, he watched the concentration on her face.

The back of her right hand brushed nonchalantly against his arousal every time she fed the bandage round his thigh, and it grew increasingly difficult for him to keep his breathing even. If she sensed it, though, Jocelyn betrayed nothing, calmly finishing the arrangement with a safety pin, inverted underneath a layer of the bandage so it would not catch. She patted his right knee. "There you are, Honey," she said softly.

He caught her wrist, brought her hand up to his mouth, and kissed the palm.

Jocelyn smiled. "Aww. I don't really think you're _bolshy_. Seems to me, with the right treatment, you're pretty _easy_ to manage."

"Tend to agree. But some people just rub me up the wrong way."

"Gee, hope _I'm_ not one of those…"

"Categorically not."

Jocelyn was sitting on her haunches, gazing up at him, her huge irises already darkening as her interest in her companion mounted. Foyle's own eyes glittered down on her with penetrating blue intensity. Fingers still wrapped around her wrist, he bent and drew her towards him, wincing slightly as the movement caught his shoulder.

Jocelyn drew away.

"Codeine," she announced. "You got any, for the pain? Not aspirin. Not for this."

"Nnnot sure. Try the bathroom cabinet. Upstairs."

Jocelyn returned after a moment with a bottle and a teaspoon. "How old is this?" she wrinkled her nose.

Foyle shrugged. "'Bout two years. Andrew—my son's a fighter pilot—came down in the Channel. They dispensed it at the hospital for the pain."

"Oh, well. Beggars can't be choosers. Open up."

Foyle was duly dosed with painkiller, and sank back into his chair, more than a little weary from the ordeal. Jocelyn settled back onto her bent legs in front of him, holding his hand. "Give it fifteen minutes. Close your eyes a little while."

Foyle's eyes shot open, seeking hers. "No desire to sleep. The day is going to waste."

"Honey, if your body's tired…" This, she decided, was the bolshy Foyle who wouldn't be 'managed'. _Ooo-kayyy. _She thought. _I remember how to manage this._

Jocelyn moved forwards onto her knees, and eased his legs apart. Running a hand over the coarse hair on top of his left thigh, she stroked the softer growth on the pale flesh of his inside leg. Foyle's breath caught in his throat.

Jocelyn squeezed lightly. "Mmm, Honey, is that gooood?" She pecked small kisses up his inner thigh, reaching up her right hand to caress his chest. A sharp hiss escaped him. From the corner of her eye she watched him grow.

Christopher's groans began the moment that she touched him. "Jocelyn. I'm. Sorry. _Please._ Dear God!"

The plea was what decided her. Despite her own need, she'd damp herself right down and give him this. The memory flew back to her, of how he'd thrown himself protectively across her, up there on the hill. That was an act of gallantry the like of which she'd never known, and gallant knights deserved their just reward.

"Shhh, Hon," she purred. "I'm gonna get you shed of these."

Calmly she reached behind her for the scissors in the first aid kit, and, pressing carefully down on his belly, she cut the waistband of his trunks in two places, feeding her hand under the scissors as she sheared on downwards to the hem end of each leg.

Casting the scissors aside, she watched his breathing quicken. His hands gripped both chair arms, head thrown back against the backrest of the chair… but he surveyed her evenly from under hooded lids. She felt his ache, his struggle to contain the rampant urge that fuelled his arousal, and did the only thing that mercy would allow.

"_Jossss_—lyn!" The powerful upward jolt of his hips would have threatened injury to them both, had she not had the presence of mind to place a restraining hand flat on him then and there. But she persevered, and eagerly. This man was all the world to her in this reality, and she was completely, utterly invested in the goal of his enjoyment and release.

Christopher's hand alighted on her hair, first resting tentatively on her crown and ghosting down until it reached her shoulders. His fingers dug into her locks and gathered in a generous hank of dark waves, crumpling them hard into his palm. "Almighty God!" he hissed. "I couldn't stop you now to save my life."

And Jocelyn knew the truth of that. His sharp, staccato, cries were music to her ears as he grew frantic, driven to a different state under her ministrations. She led him there, and kept him there, and then beyond, till he was cresting and then spent.

Jocelyn felt his fingers loosen then, and shift to cradle the nape of her neck. "Jocelyn," he gasped. "I do... I do apologise. I hope... I didn't hurt you in any way. The sensation... was so powerful, I couldn't control…"

"Shhh!" she admonished. "I know you've got good manners, but you can put 'em away for right now. This is love-makin', Sweetie! You can relax the upper lip, and save the stiffness for the rest of ya."

A deep rumble started underneath her right ear. Christopher was laughing. Christopher Foyle was laughing. She had made him gasp and moan, and made him laugh. Well, hey, perhaps she'd make him say he loved her. Maybe.

Christopher's right hand strayed down to her breast. "You feel like heaven. Hope this hasn't ruined me for later…" he murmured.

Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

******** TBC ********

*sigh*

More soon.

**GiuC**


	4. Chapter 4

**Victory Roll – Chapter 4**

**Summary:**

May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

The full version of this chapter is **M**-rated, and published separately as "**Victory Roll – Chap 4 (M)**" (but you will need to change your search-filter settings to "**Rated - M**" or "**Rating: All**"; otherwise the M chapter won't be visible in the listing).

Regret to tell you that, while I was expurgating this chapter to turn it into a **T**-rating, some lovely content disappeared as a result. But if nothing else, it gives you a reasonably respectable place to hang your reviews.

...

"Ack-ack" is wartime slang for anti-aircraft artillery.

…

For _dancesabove _– a woman of excellent taste in excellent men ;o)

* * *

**_Previously, in "Victory Roll"_**

_Jocelyn felt his fingers loosen then, and shift to cradle the nape of her neck. "Jocelyn," he gasped. "I do... I do apologise. I hope... I didn't hurt you in any way. The sensation... was so powerful, I couldn't control…"_

_"Shhh!" she admonished. "I know you've got good manners, but you can put 'em away for right now. This is love-makin', Sweetie! You can relax the upper lip, and save the stiffness for the rest of ya."_

_A deep rumble started underneath her right ear. Christopher was laughing. Christopher Foyle was laughing. She had made him gasp and moan, and made him laugh. Well, hey, perhaps she'd make him say he loved her. Maybe._

_Christopher's right hand strayed down to her breast. "You feel like heaven. Hope this hasn't ruined me for later…" he murmured._

_Within seconds, he was fast asleep._

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Late Sunday Afternoon, 17****th**** May 1942**

Satisfied with her handiwork—a boneless lover slumped in his wing-easy chair, and snoring softly—Jocelyn covered Christopher from the neck down with a chenille rug and let him sleep. Then she tiptoed round the sitting room, collecting up the discarded clothing and tidying away the first aid kit.

Content that she had restored order to the room, she crept onto the settee and made herself comfortable, curling up opposite her slumbering lover, her head supported on one hand.

Jocelyn took a mental picture of Sleeping Christopher for her life album. His head lolled to the left, away from his injured shoulder, revealing the greying curls at the nape of his neck. His sensitive, expressive lips were slightly parted. His knees were open and his right leg straight. She smiled contentedly. The rug across his chest and lap preserved his modesty, but she was well acquainted now with what lay hidden underneath. Exploring Christopher's body had been an exhilarating adventure in the vein of every missionary expedition known to man—and she'd been the one to open him up like a forgotten continent. To that extent, this man was hers, and always would be.

The act of bringing him to ecstasy had given her a gratifying sense of completion that warmed her to a depth she hadn't felt in years. And she wondered sleepily if there would soon be more, and whether, under his attentive hands, she would know ultimate fulfilment before their time together drew to its natural close.

She felt her eyelids droop, and drifted into slumber to the gentle music of her lover's soft snuffling breaths across the room.

…

"Jocelyn… gorgeous thing… Jocelyn…" She dragged herself awake to the sensation of fingers lightly sweeping a stray wisp of hair back from her temple. Christopher was bending over her, leaning on his stick, chenille rug tucked around his waist. His eyes were crinkled with affection. "It's after five, Love. Would you like some tea?"

Jocelyn blinked up at him lazily, then caught his hand and kissed his knuckles. "Sure; that would be wonderful, Hon."

Foyle gestured to the cup of tea he'd placed next to the settee on a low table. "Sorry, spilled some of it in the saucer, but I'll get better with practice." He paused. "Also, I wonder if you'd help me…?" he glanced behind him towards the hall. "I need to get upstairs."

His bladder, actually, was bursting. It had been all that he could do, as he'd struggled with the tea-making paraphernalia, to refrain from relieving himself in the kitchen sink. Upbringing, he supposed, had stopped , no. If he were honest, army life had knocked such inhibitions out of him. _Rosalind, actually._ Rosalind had been the one who'd cured him of bad habits and made him a domesticated male.

"Ohhh! Suuuure! Poor baby." Rousing herself, Jocelyn scrambled to her feet and fed an arm around his waist. "We'll take the stairs together. Slowly. You in front, me behind."

They trod the staircase carefully, and made it safely to the landing. Jocelyn ushered Christopher into the bathroom, then disappeared in search of something easy for him to wear. She found his dressing gown hanging on a hook behind the door of what she took to be the main bedroom. Glancing briefly round the room, her eyes alighted on a small, framed photograph on the mantelshelf above the fireplace. It showed a woman—in her thirties? This was Rosalind. Or had been. With gentle prompting over dinner at The V, Christopher had opened up a little about his late wife. _More than a touch of nostalgia in his heart for this sweetie_, mused Jocelyn, extending a forefinger to trace around the lady's face.

"Hi, Rosalind," she whispered. "He's been a long way off. I'm gonna haul him back. Don't be mad. He's got a lotta years left. Can't be grievin' you forever."

Christopher emerged from his ablutions, and Jocelyn met him on the landing, guiding him across into the bedroom. "Found your stuff," she told him brightly. "You can forego the rug and still hang on to your modesty."

As he stood looking down at the things she'd laid out for him—dressing gown and slippers—Jocelyn's arms hugged his waist from behind. She spoke into his shoulder. "Not that I wouldn't rather see you in nothing… but your English climate's pretty harsh. Wouldn't like to see ya catch a chill."

Foyle snorted good-naturedly. "Didn't seem to bother you downstairs, when you were shearing all my clothes off."

Jocelyn nuzzled his back. "Had to check the size of my catch. Y'know how it is."

Foyle fought to invert the smile that threatened to invade his face. "Oh? So, how—um—was it then? Dimensionally-speaking?"

"Eleven-pounder. The hell with letting it go. Decided to cook and eat it."

Foyle's upside-down smile lost its battle and evolved into a beam. He stroked her fingers, resting where the rug was cinched around his waist. "Your tea'll be getting cold."

"Lie down, why don'tcha?" she urged. "I'll bring our tea upstairs."

In the kitchen, Jocelyn found the tray that Christopher had laid and then abandoned—presumably he hadn't trusted himself to carry it without spilling the lot. The teapot was swaddled in a woollen cosy, so she simply collected her cup from the sitting room and set it down next to his.

Christopher was lying on the bed in his dressing gown when she returned with the tray. _Glad we doffed the socks downstairs, _she told herself. _Cain't see the romance in a man with socks on_.

Handing him a cup of tea, she asked, "Mind if I climb up there with ya? Looks comfy." The question, though, was purely for the sake of form. They both knew right where things were headed.

"Be my guest."

Soon they were sitting companionably, propped against the headboard, sipping the reviving brew.

Jocelyn gave a contented sigh, and snuggled against Christopher's left flank. "Beats being machine-gunned by a Messerschmitt, huh?"

"What _I_ couldn't understand, at first,"—Foyle settled his left arm around Jocelyn's shoulders—"is why the ack-acks up on West Hill didn't open fire. The plane flew off unchallenged. But then it dawned on me: the bastar— the _blessed_ thing came at us from _in_land."

"So… they couldn't turn the guns round fast enough?"

"Right. And he flew low. Suppose the direction of approach combined with the low angle was too much for them. Made sitting ducks of us, up there."

"He winged ya, Honey, didn't he? But you saved me. Really thought I'd bought it, on that hill." She stroked his biceps under the wool cloth of his dressing gown. "Snuggle down here. I wanna say a proper thank you."

Foyle's eyebrows rose. "Entirely unnecessary. In any case, I thought perhaps you'd already expressed your thanks downstairs, um, earlier."

"Sweetie, I ain't even started," drawled Jocelyn. She scooted down the bed and began to undo the knotted cord of his dressing gown.

Foyle frowned in mock exasperation, fielding her busy hand. "What the devil, Mrs St Just? Does _every_ belt beckon to be undone in your presence?"

Jocelyn collapsed onto her back in giggles. "I guess it's just… I found a way to get through to ya earlier, and I wanna keep the channels open."

"Mmmight be time for us to try a different tack. My privilege to return the favour." He turned and placed his teacup on the bedside table, then shifted carefully down the bed propped up on his left elbow, face-to-face with Jocelyn.

She regarded him with a mixture of amazement and longing. Gazing across at her with twinkling blue eyes, and the slightest patient, indulgent smile on his lips, Christopher Foyle looked for all the world like a man who'd been given an unexpected present he was deeply touched to have, but unsure he deserved.

He reached and cupped her left cheek, so that her chin rested in the vee of his hand, and stroked her right cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Jocelyn, you are a beautiful woman, inside and out." Then he bent and kissed her, pushing her lips apart gently with his tongue.

A light moan escaped her, and this encouraged Foyle to meld his lips more strongly with hers, articulating his head in obvious absorption with the moment. Once they had settled into the rhythm and cadence of the kiss, Foyle drew his hand away from Jocelyn's chin, and let it ghost down over her. The soft flesh underneath her clothing yielded to his explorations.

The intimate contact drew a sharp little cry from Jocelyn, not unlike the mewling of a baby kitten. It sent a powerful sense of dominance to Foyle's core. Any earlier doubts he might have harboured—any fears of being spoiled for further action—left him. He was quite suddenly, insistently, hard against the curve of Jocelyn's hip. In the circumstances, he could do nothing other than slide his injured right leg over her, and, though the flexing of the muscle reminded him with a hearty twinge that he'd indeed been shot, the pain faded quickly behind the insistent ache of want.

Delighted and encouraged by the signs of readiness, both on his own part and Jocelyn's, he was further entranced to feel her begging his attentions. And so he settled contentedly over her petite body to pursue the kiss, and unashamedly impose himself upon her in a way that, frankly, well-mannered gentlemen should know better than to do.

The movement of his hands on Jocelyn intensified as the kiss transformed itself into a twentieth-century Norman conquest. Foyle's tongue was getting greedy on her powerful responses, which drew him into territory unexplored in a full decade. If he didn't stop, he feared he would disgrace himself by forgetting the inalienable rule of "ladies first".

With supreme effort, Foyle tore himself away from Jocelyn's lips and squeezed his eyes tightly shut to head off the rising wave that was about to put him back three hours and ruin everybody's fun. "I think," he panted, "it would help… if we continued this… unclothed."

Jocelyn's eyes were half-closed from the ecstasy of being worshipped by a fetchingly excited male. Whatever it now took to expedite matters was just fine with her.

Foyle cocked a rueful eyebrow at his tempting companion. "My right hand's… nnnot too dextrous at the moment. Nothing would delight me more than to unwrap you like a Christmas present, but…"

Jocelyn lay back for a short while, panting lightly. _Fine,_ she thought. _If life deals lemons, make some lemonade._

"Say no more, soldier." She took his cheeks between her hands, delivered a show-stopping smacker of a kiss that left the poor man blinking in astonishment, and rolled nimbly off the bed. Standing at the bedside and capturing his eyes with hers, she reached under her left arm for the zip that would release her planned on giving Christopher Foyle a striptease he would not forget.

Drawing down the fastener, she threw her head back, tossing her wavy hair. Foyle's semi-useful right hand lifted to his brow and wiped away the perspiration that had formed there. He closed his eyes against the vision briefly, and breathed, "Jocelyn, do please excuse me. I, um… if you're going to do that, I need to, um, make sure that I won't jump the gun." After a tense moment, he opened his eyes again and managed a pained grin.

Jocelyn, for her part, managed a delighted giggle. In this new game, she could tease him mercilessly if she wished. She reached down for the hem of her frock, and crossing her arms, drew it smoothly up and over her head. Letting it drop to the floor, she ran her hands across and down herself, keeping an inexorable hold on Christopher's eyes. Like two deep tortured pools of blue, they sparkled back at her from under puckered brows. As she anticipated making love to him, Jocelyn ached to hear her name pronounced in a renewal of their ecstasy.

Her slip followed in short order. She stood before him then in garter belt and stockings, French knickers and a silken brassiere. Reaching behind her, she freed the hooks that held the garment taut against her slender frame; then she slipped a forearm underneath her breasts to stop them tumbling from the satin cups.

Since Jocelyn had begun stripping off her clothes, Foyle's pulse had risen sharply, and now the noise of it was pounding in his ears. He took a deep breath. "Jocelyn, please come here, _now._"

She crawled across the mattress towards him, arching her back, one hand supporting the satin cups against her breasts. When she reached his face, she bent to take his lips and felt his hand reach up to ease her forearm down, and with it, her brassiere.

Foyle leaned in and whispered, "Luscious. Blissful. Tell me what you want."

"Oh, this is juuust fiiiiine," she crooned, revelling in the hunger of his gaze.

"You _are_ a beauty," he observed gravely. "May I?" His right hand strayed to the grips that held her hair pinned back from her face.

"Sure, Honey." She tucked in her chin and smiled down at his worshipful expression. "Whatever your heart desires. You sure drive _me_ insane."

Foyle gently slid the pins out of her hair and ran his fingers through the wavy locks, combing them free so that they framed her features. Then he brought his face down close to hers and breathed in her fragrance. It was, he fancied, a combination of vanilla and orange blossom. At any rate, it was a breath of heaven to his woman-starved existence, and he wanted nothing more than to drown in her aroma. To breathe more of this woman scent.

Slowly, he made his way down her torso, leaving a trail of kisses between her breasts and on down to her navel till he reached the waistband of her French knickers. He kissed down past it, over the satin material, towards the junction of her thighs.

Jocelyn stroked his hair as his lips settled on her. "Christopher," she breathed, "Please, Baby."

Foyle's nose was picking up the powerful scent of woman, and it made him reluctant to shift from the delicious position where he lay. At the same time, he desperately wanted to give Jocelyn the pleasure that she craved.

"Jocelyn," he whispered urgently. "You would tell me… if anything I do offends you?"

"Sweet thing," she gasped, "I can't imagine any way you could. You feel right on track to me."

For Foyle, this invitation was sufficient, and he fed both arms beneath her to complete the journey.

Jocelyn let out a whimper. "Oh—oh, my God! You got me! Sweet Jesus! Oh, my darlin'. Oh!"

"Seen you dance," mumbled Foyle contentedly. "Let's see if I can make you sing."

Thereupon Foyle devoted his concentration to the mechanics and the magics of making music with a woman's flesh. He hadn't played this melody for years, but somehow the harmonics all came flooding back. It was a symphony inside his head; and outside he conducted the performance with his lips and tongue. Her every movement told him that she found it wonderful.

Her cries rose through his ministrations to a rhythmic catena of high-pitched breathy squeals of consummation. Foyle felt her throbbing round his tongue, and drank her like a parched man lying prone and drinking from a mountain stream.

Jocelyn's ecstasy washed over both of them, leaving him slaked and grinning idiotically against her stockinged thigh.

"I have a question for you, Sweet." A small smile spread across his stubble-darkened cheeks.

"Uh-huh?" gasped Jocelyn, gaping blindly at the ceiling as she fought to catch her breath. "What's that, Hon?"

"Did you ever think of training for the opera?"

Jocelyn felt a chuckle start low in her belly and travel up until it set her chest and shoulders shaking. All of a sudden she was giggling helplessly, and couldn't stop. And underneath it all, the steady _basso _rumble of Foyle's closed-mouthed laughter, burrowing into her thigh. Hysteria had claimed them both.

Oh, please God that there would be more. And soon.

******** TBC ********

Yes, I think there'll be more. Soon.

**GiuC**


	5. Chapter 5

**Victory Roll – Chapter 5**

**Summary:**

May 1942. Five months after the US enters World War II, Foyle is dazzled by a smile at The Royal Victoria Hotel, nearly comes to grief on Castle Hill, and is treated to some good old southern comfort.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

This chapter is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The full version is **M**-rated, and published separately as "**Victory Roll – Chap 5 (M)**" (you will need to change your search-filter settings to "**Rated - M**" or "**Rating: All**", to see it).

Read on now for the **T**-rated version. I have expurgated it as best I can, but had to stop short of castration.

...

Before antibiotics came into their own—which they gradually did in the course of World War II— sulphonamides (particularly sulfanilamide, a.k.a sulfa powder) were the combat medicine of choice for fighting bacterial infection in wounds. It has even been contended that the contribution of sulphonamides to the fight against bacteria was the real revolution in medicine, subsequently undervalued in the rush to praise the new-generation antibacterials, penicillin and streptomycin.

Sulphonamides were a between-the-wars German discovery

...

Trojans. Still a proud brand of prophylactic, I believe!

...

Guy Grindley is my own interpretation of a well-loved and respected real-life doctor who attended my grandmother and her family. He also appears in Chapter 18 of _L'Aimant_.

...

'Nick' is Britslang for police station.

...

For _dancesabove_.

* * *

**Previously, in "Victory Roll"**

_Her cries rose through his ministrations to a rhythmic catena of high-pitched breathy squeals of consummation. Foyle felt her throbbing round his tongue, and drank her like a parched man lying prone and drinking from a mountain stream._

_Jocelyn's ecstasy washed over both of them, leaving him slaked and grinning idiotically against her stockinged thigh._

_"I have a question for you, Sweet." A small smile spread across his stubble-darkened cheeks._

_"Uh-huh?" gasped Jocelyn, gaping blindly at the ceiling as she fought to catch her breath. "What's that, Hon?"_

_"Did you ever think of training for the opera?"_

_Jocelyn felt a chuckle start low in her belly and travel up until it set her chest and shoulders shaking. All of a sudden she was giggling helplessly, and couldn't stop. And underneath it all, the steady basso rumble of Foyle's closed-mouthed laughter, burrowing into her thigh. Hysteria had claimed them both._

_Oh, please God that there would be more. And soon._

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**Later Sunday Afternoon, 17****th**** May 1942**

Jocelyn reached down to tease the short, greying curls that framed the back of Christopher's ear. "Come up to me," she hummed. "Gimme some sugar."

Foyle was about to apologise for the lack of sugar in his pantry—a microcosm of Britain's situation over food in general—when the sound of the telephone ringing in the downstairs hallway reached his ears. He tried to push himself up off the bed, but the position into which he'd forced his body around Jocelyn's hips made him wince. Pleasure, he reflected, came at a demanding price.

"Drat," he grumbled. "If I don't answer that, Sam'll have Milner round here on a mercy mission." He hesitated, unsure of his right to ask. "Jocelyn… would you mind…? Before he rings off…?"

"Leave it to me, Hon." Not even pausing to grab her discarded brassiere, Jocelyn swept her leg with acrobatic ease over Foyle's head, and hot-footed it down the staircase to the phone.

In one nimble move, she snatched the Bakelite receiver from its cradle.

"Hel-lo?" she crooned mellifluously into the handset, "Foyle residence? How may I help youuu?... Why, Sergeant Milner! We already met… Mrs St Just… Miss Stooart surely told you… on the hill with Mr Foyle… uh-huh… American Red Cross, Sea Terrace Restaurant?... You got it!... Mr Foyle? Just flesh wounds… Sure. He's very sore, but fine. Been resting for the past few hours. Shall Ah see if he's awake?... Mah pleasure, Sergeant. Don't you go 'way now…"

By this time, Foyle had struggled to the landing in his dressing gown. Even as he cursed the stiffness in his leg and shoulder, Jocelyn's honey tones drifted up the stairwell, recalling to him Mr Churchill's appreciative assessment of American womanhood: _"The most beautiful voice in the world is that of an educated Southern woman."_ His lips curved upward almost imperceptibly. How singularly apposite the observation was.

His striped pyjama jacket was slung over his left arm. Mindful of Jocelyn's precipitate departure from the bedroom in a state of undress, he had grabbed the nearest thing around for her to wear. Now, as he peered down into the hall, he caught an eyeful of his lovely nurse-cum-playmate, telephone in hand, and naked from the waist up in her satin underwear. Endeavouring to force his mind to focus, he pinched the bridge of his nose, but concentration failed him altogether when she set down the receiver on the table, and jogged unselfconsciously upstairs to lend a hand with his descent.

Jocelyn halted on the stair below the landing, smiling up at him, her sooty lashes batting in a gentle tease.

"Help ya down? It's Mr Milner."

Foyle swallowed. "Thank you, Jocelyn, but I'll manage." He kept his voice low, hoping that his words would not be picked up by their caller; then held out the pyjama jacket to her.

"Here, put this on," he urged her with a pleading look, adding pointedly, "you must be _cold_."

Jocelyn's reply was unadulterated devilment. She shook her head. "Nuh-uh. I'm warm enough. Still glowin' from _beforrrre_," she grinned, plucking the pyjama top from his hand, and allowing it to dangle provocatively from her upturned forefinger.

Foyle's eyes narrowed. He closed a hand around the finger, bringing his face down to hers so that their noses almost touched.

"Imp," he hissed. "I can't converse with Milner with you _bouncing_ around like that."

"Aww. Is that so?" Jocelyn's mischief drove her to affect a plaintive tone. "You asked me to get movin', so I moved. Cain't hardly help what bounces."

She tossed her hair in playful indignation, then turned, and rolled her shoulder, proffering the back of it to Foyle. Her neck arched round, and two dark eyes gazed up at him seductively. "Lean on me, Dee Cee Ess Foyle," she purred.

Outflanked and outmanoeuvred, Foyle rolled his eyes in resignation and brought his left hand down to rest on Jocelyn's milky shoulder. Together they began a tentative descent of the stairs.

Once they were safely at the bottom, Jocelyn darted off into the next room and returned with a straight-backed dining chair for Christopher. With her charge safely seated, she gave his fuzzy scalp the briefest stroke, then trotted back upstairs, pyjama jacket swinging from her finger.

Foyle watched in mute appreciation, and with large, appraising eyes, until she'd disappeared into the bedroom. Biting his lip, he slid one hand under his dressing gown to quell the tribute rising there. Then with his other hand he reached for the receiver lying on the table.

"Foyle... Yes, hello, Milner… Oh well, not too bad, considering…"

Reassuring his sergeant as to his wellbeing was easy, but the bigger problem turned out to be Sam, whose presence Foyle detected in the background, agitating to be party to the phone call. His suspicion was soon vindicated when _sotto voce _bargaining began with Milner at the other end of the line, around the general theme of what time Sam was to collect her boss from home the next day. After the umpteenth interruption, Milner's flustered voice came back on the line: "…says she'll—er—hang on, Sir…yes…that she'll be with you at twelve sharp."

Foyle fought back irritation. His driver was effectively demoting his sergeant to the role of ventriloquist's dummy, and it simply wouldn't do. His voice took on a steely tone.

"Tell her two o'clock, and not before. There'll be plenty of time tomorrow afternoon to go through casualty and damage reports."

There followed next a dilatory attempt by the two men to discuss the afternoon's raid, but persistent background interference from Samantha served to ruin Milner's concentration. Eventually, the poor man just gave up the fight and posed the question being hissed into his ear. "…wants to know if she should come round there and cook your dinner, Sir."

Foyle gave a start that nearly knocked him sideways off his chair. His eyes stretched in alarm. "Nunno! Thank her for me, but _no_. _Absolutely_ _not_. I shall be, um, eating a light snack, then off to bed."

Some muffled discussion-bordering-on-argument was audible through Milner's hand, strategically placed over the receiver at the other end, followed by the noise of a door being closed less than quietly.

When he'd hung up at last, Foyle blinked and let out one long, hissing breath, then leant back in the chair, rubbing both hands up and down his face. To his astonishment, he found that he was sweating. _Why all the perishing fuss? What does she… ? I'm not __**dying**__, for pity's sake._

He rose, manoeuvring himself across to the foot of the staircase, where he then stood surveying the dozen or so steps that rose in front of him. Without his stick, forgotten in the bedroom, they seemed a daunting prospect. Climbing them unaided looked a tiny bit too much for him. He swallowed his pride, and called upstairs for aid.

"Um, Sam? Would you mind help—"

In horror he bit off his words. _Dear God! _Foyle squeezed both eyes tight shut and winced, then opened one a crack, in full expectation of Jocelyn glaring down at him, incensed, from the top of the staircase.

Instead he heard the sound of the lavatory flushing upstairs.

A moment later, Jocelyn stepped through the bathroom door, enveloped in his striped pyjama jacket. "Hi, Honey," she greeted him softly. "You comin' up, or am I comin' down?"

Foyle gazed up at his lover, leaning on the balustrade, one slender ankle crossed in front of the other, and his mind wandered back to that first sight of her in the Sea Terrace restaurant: a study in elegance, shod in those delightful, wonderfully frivolous pom-pom shoes. Now here she stood outside his bedroom, clad in the top half of his pyjamas over satin underwear, dishevelled, in her stocking feet. And he had never seen a vision of such loveliness. Oh, he was coming up, all right. At this rate of up-comingness, he wouldn't need a stick to lean on as he climbed the stairs.

Gritting his teeth, Foyle prepared to scale the north face of the Eiger. He managed several steps, but then, around the halfway mark, a bloom of blood began to seep out though the beige wool of his dressing gown where it touched his thigh, compelling him to stop.

"Uh-oh!" In an instant, Jocelyn was down the stairs and at his side, wrapping a supporting arm around his waist. "Easy on the exercise for you now, soldier."

_Please God! Not now! _Foyle hardly knew which hurt more: the bleeding thigh or the blood-engorged dishonourable member. Clearly, the repeated rushes of blood to his groin that afternoon, coupled with the climb upstairs, had started the wound off bleeding again.

Jocelyn helped him through onto the bed. "Fresh bandages, then dinner. You rest there, Hon. Bring ya a tray when the time comes."

She fetched more bandages and patiently re-dressed his thigh, binding it more tightly this time. He tried—he really did—to keep his mind above the waist, but something in the way she wrapped his wound—her serious expression, and her gentleness, aroused him yet again.

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow, as if to request guidance. He leant, eyes closed, against the headboard. "Sorry," he told her gruffly. "Forgotten its manners in the presence of a lady." He reached down to quell his excitement, as he had earlier, but she stayed his hand.

Foyle's eyes peeled open.

Leaning in from her bedside perch, Jocelyn's lips sought out his eyelids, nipping gently at the long eyelashes that framed his weary blue orbs. "You are so beautiful," she breathed. "God forgive me, Christopher, I just can't let you go to waste."

Gently, taking care to keep all pressure off his injured thigh, she bestrode him. Christopher's eyes took in the concentration on her face, and he smiled warmly at her, stroking up and down her thighs in light, encouraging caresses.

Finally, his hands alighted on her hips. "I can't believe we're doing this," he whispered. "It's been such a long, long time for me, Jocelyn. Will you... be safe?"

Loving him for his fond concern, she trailed a finger down his chest. "I'm not exactly… regular… these days. But just so happens that I finished Friday last. So we should be okayyy." A nervous giggle escaped her.

Christopher sent her a questioning look.

"You see," she said, "we had no kids. I always figured it was me. But what do _I_ know? Greg would never see a doctor. You're the only guy I've taken things this far with since he died. The other times… I never felt I trusted…" She gave a little shrug. Foyle saw that she was on the verge of tears.

He reached up and caressed her face. "Lovely girl. I'm so proud that you've chosen to trust _me_." His eyes crinkled into an adoring smile. "May I tell you something?"

Jocelyn relaxed back down onto his legs and nodded, fondling his good thigh. "Sure, Christopher."

He took a deep breath. "Rosalind, my wife, and I, were modern in our outlook. That's to say she thought—we thought—she ought to have some time to do the things she loved before she settled to a family. And so we… _I_… was diligent in using birth control. Rosalind, you see, enjoyed her painting."

"But you have a son, you said."

"We have—I have." Foyle's eyes twinkled as he continued. "The French letters that we used were always fairly sturdy to the naked eye. Rosalind (in fact, we used to laugh about it), used them to store her paintbrushes overnight to... you know, to keep the bristles moist. One night, she added water for good measure. But by the next morning, every bit of water in the johnny had leaked out. Turns out the whole batch that I'd bought was faulty. Eight months later, Andrew was born. Wouldn't swap him for the world, but at that stage in our marriage, he was entirely accidental."

"How did she… How did Rosalind take it?"

Foyle raised an eyebrow. "Like a Trojan."

The giggles started low, then mounted. Jocelyn rocked back against his legs in gales of mirth. It was a little while before she managed to check and brace herself, remembering his injury. "You sure know how to tell 'em, Sugar," she chuckled. "Is there more?"

"There's more," he nodded, with mock gravity. "Every single Frenchie we used after that, she tested. Filled every one with water, and pegged it on a line slung from her easel. And once she'd satisfied herself it didn't leak, she'd empty it and roll it up again. Always had several on test at once. Used to joke the easel would make a quite conversation piece with guests. But we never tried it out on company. She kept the whole lot in the attic."

Foyle's face was deadpan. His delivery was flat. But oh! The eyes! His eyes had such a glint of mischief that Jocelyn could barely stop the giggles. But once her laughter calmed, the true significance of what he'd told her started to sink in.

"Baby," she breathed, incredulous. "Are you tellin' me you've never done it… _without?_"

He gave her an unflinching look. "A few times only. When my wife was already expecting Andrew. Just a few, mind you—the pregnancy was… a difficult one. But apart from those times… nup."

"Aw, Sweetie!" Her hand crept to caress his cheek. "This is gonna feel _sooo_ nice for you. And I can hardly wait to show you _how_ nice."

Slowly, lovingly Jocelyn welcomed him inside her, never letting her eyes stray from his. She watched his eyelids flutter as he and she joined, and gave a firm but gentle intimate salute, to let him know, in case he was in any doubt, that he was home.

Foyle felt the pulsing sweetness of her. "Like plush velvet," he whispered. "You feel softer than an eiderdown, and stronger than a vice. I think I'm going to like it here…"

He reached up to take a breast in each hand, worshipping her through the satin fabric of her slip. Jocelyn leant into him and squeezed again.

"Hang on to me, DCS Foyle," she grinned. "We're goin' for a bareback ride."

* * *

**Monday, 18****th**** May, 1942**

Their sleep was gloriously deep and long—dinner had been entirely forgotten in the aftermath of passion. When Foyle awoke, the first rays of the early morning sun were chasing out the shadows in the room. He felt relaxed, as if he'd slept for twenty years.

Slowly, memories of the previous night crept back into his consciousness. Along with them, the dull aches in his shoulder and his thigh became realities again, but they were tempered by the happy knowledge that he wasn't lying in his bed alone.

He turned his head, and drank in the lovely vision on the pillow next to his. Jocelyn St Just. Sweet as honey on the outside, smooth as velvet on the inside. Never had he felt such yielding softness in a woman.

Foyle rolled onto his left flank, savouring the sight of her. Jocelyn lay on her back, right arm bent up at the elbow, her forearm resting on the pillow by her ear. The bedclothes had slid away from her upper body, and the strap of her slip had worked its way down to the crook of her elbow, revealing one perfect ivory breast. He should cover her with the bedclothes—he knew he should. But somehow it seemed sacrilege to veil such natural beauty. Instead, he let his right hand reach and cup her breast, savouring the coolness underneath his palm. He stroked it lightly and with wordless wonder, recalling every detail of their unprotected coupling the night before.

Jocelyn stirred amidst a halo of dark chestnut waves, delightfully unruly and dishevelled. On opening her eyes, she was distantly aware of Christopher beside her, his blue eyes crinkling in affection. "Chris'fer," she cooed. "H'ney," and stroked her other hand across his, where it rested on her breast. She snoozed again.

The wave of tenderness that swelled inside him as he watched her was a revelation. Nothing could have warned him of its power. Still raw and real, the memory of last night's lovemaking revived his arousal in honour of it. Here and now, he felt the force of his desire to love her once again, burying all the years of loneliness, and feeling something of the life and joy this woman's courage and her ardour could dispense.

"Beautiful. You're beautiful," he breathed, half inwardly. Then, a little louder, "Would you…? Could you stand to…? Jocelyn…?" He bent and nudged his nose into the crook of her neck, lapping at her earlobe, his hand now kneading lightly at her breast. He smiled contentedly, and pushed against her hip, his tenderness transforming into appetition. A momentary panic checked him. Could he do this? Pain was gnawing at his thigh, but, mercifully, the urge to quell this new desire was stronger. "Sweet girl," he hummed his urgent plea, "wake up for me. I'm wide awake for you."

Jocelyn surfaced slowly to the feel of Christopher, against and half across her. His male scent filled her nostrils, invoking dreams and strong desires that, though she was barely yet awake, made her long for him to fill her and assuage the ache of emptiness. She felt his hardness at her hip, and heard his sweet cajoling in her ear.

"Christopher," she crooned, still half asleep, and turned her lips towards the breath of warmth upon her neck.

The meeting of their lips became the new explosive focus of her world. His tongue was in her mouth, consuming her and making her devour him in return. Oh this, oh this was wide-awake acceptance, and she was there for him and wanted more. Nothing mattered but the deep, warm welcome for him in the velvet of her body. Nothing mattered but to draw him in and lose herself in his embrace.

Foyle felt her soft acceptance overwhelm him, and for a moment he was fearful he had strayed beyond his own ability to contain himself. With a supreme effort of will, he fought shy of the precipice, gaining enough safe ground so that, when Jocelyn then sent him an appreciative, intimate embrace, he was powerfully aroused, but no longer under threat of falling.

A contented moan from Jocelyn reminded him of his pleasurable responsibilities. He eased himself carefully onto his left elbow and fixed his eyes on Jocelyn's passion-slackened face, reaching down between their bodies. Jocelyn's eyes flew open. "Heaven. _Don't _stop!"

Foyle smiled in open pleasure at her rapt enjoyment. "No fear of that, my love," he soothed.

His lips parted in earnest concentration as he lifted his chin to observe and gauge each nuance of her sensual response. Jocelyn was arching up to meet him now, straining her muscles inside and out to keep pace with her own rising tension and Christopher's relentless teasing of her body. She was held in thrall by his worshipful, solicitous expression under puckered brows as he watched her climb to her completion. To see him working her to ecstasy this way very nearly undid her, but Jocelyn had no desire to finish on her own.

"Christopher," she gasped. "You, too. Come with me!"

Foyle's eyelids fluttered, feeding on the visual flavour of Jocelyn's mounting ecstasy. His facial muscles twitched, his nostrils flared to fuel his imminent completion. Heady on her scent rising up between their bodies, he closed his eyes and lowered himself onto his left elbow, wrapping his right arm under Jocelyn's hips. "Time… to finish… what we've… started…"

The dance began in earnest, startling them both with its intensity and vigour. Jocelyn called his name and shuddered her completion round him, and he gripped her tightly to him, bursting with a helpless sob of "Jocelyn" on his lips.

They lay entwined, and stunned with the raw intensity of their union. Jocelyn ran her fingers through the soft curls of his nape, and Christopher pressed his lips against the tender flesh behind her ear, feeding on the perspiration pooled there.

"Can't tell you what that meant to me," he murmured. "Thank you, Love."

"I'll _never_ forget today," she answered softly. And her cheeks were wet.

…

Some while later, as they ate a tardy breakfast downstairs in the kitchen, Christopher lapsed into silence.

Jocelyn's heart went out to him. She rose and leant over the back of his chair, resting a hand on his good shoulder. Pressing her lips into the fuzz of his scalp, she asked gently, "What's up, Honey?" _Well, as if she didn't know._

Christopher reached up to stroke her hand, feeding his fingers through hers. "I'd like to think that we could have this time again."

"Speak for yourself, Buster," she drawled, a little too lightheartedly. "I can barely walk."

Christopher tried again. "When you're next in Hastings, we should try for that champagne."

She squeezed his fingers. "Sure, Honey. Champagne's such a treat to have. But I hope you won't wait _too_ long 'fore you crack open a bottle… even if it's with another girl."

Christopher gazed sightlessly ahead, and launched a familiar assault upon his inside cheek.

…

Unwilling to linger till the bitter end, Jocelyn gathered her things together as the clock struck one, and stood in Foyle's hallway with her hands on his shoulders, gazing up at him through misty eyes.

"I'll send Sam," Foyle said gruffly, wrestling his emotions firmly into submission. "She'll run you from the hotel to the railway station this evening."

Jocelyn laughed gamely, sniffing back a tear. "You sure 'bout that, Dee Cee Ess Foyle? Miss Samantha Stooart might have different ideas."

"She'll do it if I ask her…" Foyle drew her close into his arms, and spoke into her hair. "Jocelyn—what will you do? I'll truly miss you."

Her forearms rested resolutely on his chest to keep an inch or two of distance. It really was a case of _If I wrap my arms around him this time, I'll never be able to leave._

She steeled herself and gave him her best, dazzling beam. "'_Life's a Charleston,'_ as my Carolina granny used to say. 'One step forward, one step back, but what the hey, you gotta keep on dancin'." She placed a cool hand on his cheek. "What will _you_ do, Hon?"

Intense blue eyes locked onto hers. "I think the vision of you dancing on the hill will stay with me as one of the enduring memories of my life." Foyle took a shuddering breath. "But since you ask, I might just… take a leaf out of your book. Begin to live a little, outside work."

He bent his head and crushed his lips to hers, for what they knew would be their last, heart-rending, soul-enhancing time.

…

Jocelyn St Just stepped out of Foyle's front door and headed downhill to the sea front. She turned west along The Stade and walked back to St Leonards with the sea breeze blowing in her hair.

She slowly packed her things that afternoon with pensive care. Atop her neatly folded clothes, she placed a soft white cotton drawstring bag. Inside it were her pom-pom shoes, and the blue silk handkerchief that Christopher had bid her use up on the hill to wipe her hand clean of his blood.

She stripped out of her underthings, and held against her cheek the slip she'd worn as she'd lain next to Christopher all night in bed. The satin garment was no longer pristine—their frantic morning activities had seen to that—but, even had she had the time to launder it, nothing on this earth would have induced Jocelyn to do so. Folding the slip, she slid it carefully into the cotton bag with her other treasures, then tied the drawstring in a careful bow.

Jocelyn sighed wistfully. Time to take stock of what had happened. For the sake of her sanity. Time to be… _ack!... realistic._

She thought of Christopher, and the joyful, liberating intimacy they'd shared that day. And she thought of home, and all the loving years she'd had with Greg. Her brief time spent with Christopher had made a piece of England feel like home for this short while, and yet the pull of over forty years of memories still tugged her Stateside. Her posting to the British Isles had fed her taste for new experience and adventure, but there was still, she told herself, a lot back home she wouldn't want to leave behind forever. And though she realised she may not see 'back home' again for months—or even years—America, she knew, was where her future life would be.

She knew it in the self-same measure as she knew that Christopher could not be hers.

Despite the lonely image he'd projected on their first acquaintance, Christopher Foyle—she'd seen it clearly from that moment he'd unleashed his anger at Samantha on the hill—was not a man whose affections were completely unengaged. Rather, he had allowed his personal desires to lapse, and languish into dormancy. He'd needed just to rouse himself to the emotional possibilities within his grasp. It was Jocelyn's unselfish hope that, at the very least, she had awakened him to the attractive prospects right there on his doorstep. Particularly, she wanted to have planted in his mind the idea that he might one day find happiness with Samantha Stewart.

_All for the best_, she told herself, sighing raggedly.

_And, _accentuating the positive…

In return, he'd given Jocelyn a glorious reminder of the passion missing from her life since she had tragically lost her husband. Despite her forwardness at their first meeting—whatever had possessed her, she was not a bit sure—dalliances since her husband's death had been extremely rare. But something in this Englishman's demeanour had drawn her in, and made him too enticing to resist. In their short time together, Christopher had given her respect, amusement, intimacy, and passion. He had even come perilously close to laying down his life to offer her protection, and had done so unhesitatingly, without a second thought.

With such a store of riches gathered in these forty-eight short hours, Jocelyn's hope chest had been bountifully replenished. Quite simply, Christopher had, with quiet goodness, set the standard and revived her aspirations of rebuilding an emotional life—perhaps of someday finding happiness with a gentle, passionate, supportive man who understood the music of her soul.

Jocelyn St Just smiled to herself through wistful tears, and wrapped her arms around her middle, savouring her memory of the tenderness, solicitude and quiet passion of one man's nature.

"Loved ya for a single day to last a lifetime, Christopher," she breathed.

…

Around half past one, the doorbell rang, and Foyle heaved himself out of the wing easy where he'd been sitting, miserably, with a glass of Jack Daniel's for company, since Jocelyn had left. He had been contemplating putting on his hat and coat as best he could, in preparation for Sam's arrival, and smiled in resignation at her blatant disregard of his _two o'clock, no earlier_ instruction.

_A full half-an-hour early._ He raised an eyebrow. _Might have known._

Walking stick in hand, Foyle limped to his front door and pulled it open. There, to his genuine surprise, he saw his family doctor leaning on the railings.

"Guy? What…?"

The gentle giant on his doorstep was Dr Grindley. Sixty-ish. A perfect advert for the resilience of the medical profession. Slept on his feet; ate on the hoof. Held patients' hands into the night and fuelled himself on whisky. Everybody loved him; some of his patients even paid him. Others were apt to slip him a bag of carrots or, if he was lucky, a quarter of tea.

"Hear you had a run-in with The Hun, old chap." Grindley raised his bag. "You going to let me in, or what?"

Foyle took an awkward step back from the door to let his caller pass. "And you, um, heard this where?" Foyle limped in Grindley's wake towards the sitting room.

"Saw your young lady driver at Hastings Nick an hour ago. Your sergeant asked me to call in and countersign some medical reports. From what the lassie tells me, _you_ are under the illusion you can walk on water."

Foyle was irked. His head tilted sideways, underlining his denial. "_Nnnot _a fair description of the circumstance. I had medical attention. Thought your time was better spent elsewhere."

"That might have been a decent reason _yesterday._ Today, it stinks of stubbornness. I've come to check you over. Strip."

"Guy, I…"

"Off. I haven't got all day." Grindley tossed his hat onto the settee, and settled his bag on a convenient table. Then he turned and helped Foyle shed his waistcoat, shirt and trousers.

"Who saw to you?" he asked.

"American Red Cross. Trained in first aid. 'xtremely competent."

"Nurse?"

"Mmmight as well have been." Foyle bit back his inclination to talk about Jocelyn. Her departure was still painfully raw—his chest was throbbing from it, much in the manner of his flesh wounds.

"Sulfa powder sprinkled on the wounds?"

"Nup."

Grindley sucked his teeth. "We'll have to see, then. All depends how good a job she did of cleaning you up. No substitute for proper irrigation and debridement. What did she use?"

"Carbolic soap and alcohol. It bloody stung, at any rate."

The doctor nodded as he unwound the bandages. "I can well imagine, man."

Foyle held his breath for any signs of medical disapprobation—with Grindley these were usually tuts and pouts. In the event, both wounds passed muster. Jocelyn's work had met with his professional approval.

"Decent nurse," observed Grindley. "I could do with somebody like her. Where is she now?"

Foyle felt his pulse skip. "Staying at The Royal V… but she'll be gone by evening. Leaving Hastings for another posting. So you're out of luck." _And so am I, _he thought_._

"Open wide." Grindley jammed a thermometer into Foyle's mouth, then stepped back from his patient and rolled his shoulders. "Right, well. Just as a precaution—going to apply sulfanilomide for good measure. But the girl did well. No sign of infection." He turned and rifled through his bag. Finding the yellow powder, he sprinkled it over Foyle's wounds.

"You know," the doctor's manner shifted to expansive mode as he removed the thermometer from under Foyle's tongue and checked the reading, "if Jerry had stuck to medicine, we'd all be laughing. But no. First, he gives us stuff like this,"—he held up the sulfa powder—"convinces us he's human… then, by God! the bugger's off again and up to his old tricks. The only sulphur coming out of Germany these days is that whiff of the diabolical, off Hitler and his cronies."

Foyle's shoulders shook with silent laughter as the doctor re-bound his wounds. When he'd finished, Grindley patted Foyle on his good arm.

"You're done. I'll help you dress, but first…" he solemnly produced from his bag a loaded syringe, topped with a four-inch needle.

"Bend over, man. Don't want you getting tetanus, Jerry flu, or worse."

Afterwards, Foyle winced and rubbed his buttock. "What the bloody blazes was in that?"

Grindley smirked. "Vitamin injection. I'm out of tetanus vaccine. Sorry."

"What the—!"

"Serves you right for thinking you can dodge the medical profession."

"Guy?"

"Yes, old chap?"

"Piss off. My driver's coming. I've got work to do." He fumbled to do up his trousers.

Grindley spied the glass of whiskey next to Foyle's chair and promptly rehoused the contents in his stomach. "Bad for you, this stuff," he declared. "Thins the blood. Increases risk of bleeding."

"Don't imagine _yours_ clots very easily then," Foyle observed drily.

Grindley licked his lips and jammed his hat down on his silver hair. "Not if I can help it. Ah, well! Duty calls. _The more deserving cases_."

Foyle quirked a smile. "Mind your step on the way out, Guy." He reached and shook the doctor's hand. "Don't, um, break your neck or anything," he added brightly.

…

That evening, a polite request from Foyle sent Samantha and the Wolseley to The Royal V to collect Mrs St Just and take her to her train. It was an awkward sort of reunion. Once formal greetings had been exchanged in the hotel foyer, and they'd climbed into the car, a weighty silence settled over the two women.

Five minutes into the journey, Jocelyn grasped the nettle. "Sam, would you consider sharing what's bothering you?"

Sam's chin went up. "It's… really none of your business," she declared airily.

"Ooo-kaay. Fine." Jocelyn squinted through the passenger window for inspiration, then, swivelling in her seat, she turned to face Samantha's stony profile. "I'll give ya a free pass. Ask me anything you like. It stays between us."

Sam's eyes remained rigidly fixed on the road. "I hardly know you."

Jocelyn shrugged, still looking steadily across at Sam. "Offer's still on the table." She watched the younger woman's coolness doing battle with her curiosity, and waited.

Curiosity won out.

In one decisive movement, Samantha pulled the car into the kerb, and turned her eyes to lock with Jocelyn's. They were defiant, fierce with entitlement… and desperate. Sam's mouth opened for an instant and she tilted her head, as if to formulate a complex query. But the question, when it came, was quite simple in construction. She took a breath.

"Did Mr Foyle make love to you?"

Jocelyn lowered her eyes to rest on the gloved hands folded in her lap, and scrupulously edited their morning lovemaking from her memories. How ardently she'd made love to Christopher Foyle. How responsively… he'd let her.

She sighed and shook her head. "No, Sam, he didn't." She heard the younger woman catch her breath. "But Ah sure do wish he had."

_All done and dusted now._ Jocelyn gazed sightlessly through the windscreen. She had bent truth in service of a kindness. Because she knew for certain what was kind. But truth? Well, _heavens above! _The truth was always so subjective anyway.

"I won't be coming back, Sam." Jocelyn's gaze was quietly earnest. "Promise you'll look after him."

Sam blinked back tears of raw relief. "I always try to... when he'll let me. And… thank you."

******** TBC ********

**More Author's Notes:**

_"Turns out the whole batch that I'd bought was faulty."_

Condom quality control in the Twenties wasn't brilliant. They often leaked.

…

_"'The most beautiful voice in the world is that of an educated Southern woman.'"_

Mr Churchill's special fondness for the tones of the American South was drawn to my attention by _ImaLateBloomer_. Thanks!

...

_ "'Loved ya for a single day to last a lifetime, Christopher,' she breathed."_

As I was writing this story, _dancesabove_ acquainted me with Heathcliff's declaration of love to Cathy in Emily Brontë's_ Wuthering Heights_:

_"If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day."_

We idly (hungrily) wondered how these words would sound on the charismatic lips of Mr Kitchen. (And, as he has read the audiobook, we were able to hear them!)

…

More soon.

**GiuC**


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